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popculturebuffet · 5 months

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Supermay!: It's A Bird... It's a Plane.. It's Superman! Review (Comission for Emma Fici)

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to Supermay! A celebration of all things man of steel. And today boy oh boy do I have a treat for you. It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a goddamn musical. We're taking look at the 1975 tv adaptation of the 1966 Stage Musical It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's superman! Baby.

This is something i've wanted to watch since seeing a clip of what turned out to be the final number years ago: It looked cheesy as hell and I was here for it. And when I pitched it to Emma her response was a resounding

So here we are.

So thanks to wikipedia I got some background on this one. Usually not the best source but I didn't have a lot. It did give me stage actor and superman in the broadway version Bob Holiday's 2000's as hell website

it's funly nostalgic and the guy seemed genuinely nice and i'ts mostly to tribute the man. Ther'es the odd bit like "sounding every bit as masculine as superman must" but it's mostly a nice little tribute. It didn't tell me much but it did impress that Bob HAD to maintain the superman posture live on stage and that the musical had flying effects, which is neat.

Otherwise the musical did well with critics.. but Audiences didn't catch on. They may of just not been in the mood for this level of camp, it may of been that old attitude that "comic books ares for childrens", which is true but their also for everybodys at the same time. At any rate it didn't do well.

The weird thing is.. it was a case of DC accidnetly undercutting itself. Around the same time the camptastic glory that was Adam West Batman started airing so an intended Time article for the musical was reduced to a blurb to promote batman instead.

So a decade later DC tried to recoup some losses, lisenscing the musical to ABC in the hopes of getting some of that sweet high school and regional theater money. And instead.. ABC just shoved it on their schedule and didn't really give a shit. So yeah this musical is mildly cursed and I feel bad fo rit. It's a wonderfully campy little piece of superman history, a truly odd, truly unique thing that deserves it's flowers, so today i'm giving them to them. So come fly with me under the cut as we experince bargin bin sweden hating lex luthor, jealous journalists, wacky mobsters, depression, an iconic musical number, gay supervillians in love, and all the camp that's fit to print. It's A Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman! .. and some ads!

Commericals!:

As a brucey bonus, the person who put this specail on youtube also added a cluster of superman themed commericals at the end. I'm going to tackle them because my good friend @jess-the-vampire recommended them. We watched the musical together but she stuck around for these commericals.

We open with one from Bob Holiday, who promotes Aqua Velva.. and honestly I wish more than just the soundtrack for the stage musical existed because he seems like an excellent superman.

The next is just superman using an at and t card to call the office as they try to get back to .. contact london. And Lois brings up he always disappears? I don't get you commerical

Now we get into the real nonsense. Lex Luthor has kidnapped superman.. to ask why superman peanut butter tastes so great. The funniest part of this is I could buy lex being THAT petty that he can't just ASK superman, he has to kidnap him, put him near a giant chunk of kryptonite and demand he tells him. Some kids save superman, they enjoy some peanutbutter and luthor finds out he'll find out someday, SOMEDAY SUPERMAN YOU'LL TELL ME THE SECRET OF YOUR RICH CREAMERY PEANUT BUTTER!

Anyways, now for superman to say no to smoking! Some man dressed like a wizard is teaching children to smoke. Man big tabacco is really having to get clever. I remember the old days when they didn't have to be as subtle

Superman then fights Nick O Teen again.. yes that's really his name.

Yes he really looked like that. And the sad part is this special proves this isn't even the dumbest guy he's fought. he fights nick as he tries to corrupt youth at baaseball and then claims you can quit any time only to disprove it when superman takes his sigs. He also coughs up a big black cloud when superman does this? Superman.. I I think you might be killing this guy. Give him his smokes superman, let him live!

Superman then calls a kid who smoked to be cool a looser. This is somehow only the second most dickish thing he's ever done.

We then get a few less takable adds: Superman picks up a kid who was abndoned by his friends for being intrested in drugs and relaizing drugs ar efor loosers, then promotes a kit for asmatic kids.. which is actually really nice. Good job superman.

We then get an add for underoos which is a bunch of children dancing around in their underwear. I feel like i'm going on some sort of watchlist just for watching this. There's Superman, Wonder Woman, Aquaman and Spider-man! And another add which adds batman and the hulk.. and the dukes of hazzard? Also this add made me realize the venture bros were wearing underoos for some time

Though the actual aquaman underoos are way more half assed

That's just..sad.

Anyways enough about children's underwear, for the love of god enough about children's underwear, let's have some airforce propoganda by some weirdo in a mustache and some weirdo in a superman outfit who gets recurited for the airforce.

Now Taco Bell is offering SUPERMAN GLASSES. Super fuckin shooter.. I actually want one of those now. I miss when restruants did this. I wasn't really around for it but I miss it.

Now superman on viewmaster! God I loved how these things looked as a kid.. on the outside. could never really see them well.

Next superman rescue two kids from the evils of WEEEEEEDDDD and just fly them to the boys and girl club. I mean that last part's nice and children shoudln't smoke weed but like... do they have a ride home? Are you just going to fly them to my house.

Now for a create a super villian contest. Everyone gets puffy stickers! EVERYONE EVEN YOU. EVEN IF YOU DON'T WATCH THEM. Also Casey Kasem robin. That's dope.

Now for a living french fry from superman french fries

And now our feature presentation

So we open with some .. weird as hell introductions to most of our cast. And it's right away we get one of this special's weirder quirks: out of Superman's suprisingly large supporting cast and main rogue's gallery only THREE characters from the comics are in this musical: Superman himself, played by David Wilson, Lois Lane played by Lesley Ann Warren and Perry White played by Al Ludden. I couldn't find anything really on wilson, but Warren's been in a ton of stage and tv while Ludden was the host of pass word. Yes weirdly Jimmy Olson is left out.. I wonder why

Fair enough then. So rather than say get Lex Luthor or Jimmy in the plot we instead get Max Mencken, an egotistical reporter who hates superman for stealing all the attention played by Kenneth Mars, mars assitant who has a thing for him Syndey Carlton played by MASH star Loretta Swit, the only actor I recognized in this, and David Wayne as Dr. Abner Sedwick, a mad scientest working for the Metropolis INsittue of Technology who wants to kill superman to conquer the world. There's also a mafia boss played by Malachi Throne, thankfully replacing the racial sterotypes with hired goons

Yeah while I get not using some of supes Rogues, Braniac would hard to be get right on stage back then for instance, it's very weird to me that they don't use Luthor for sedwick's role. Ther'es nor eason it CAN'T be him: while Luthor didn't have sedwick's veil of legitmacy back then (A weird thing to think about) it's not that big a change nad as seen by the 80's onward, it actually improves the character. I get Max, they wanted more characters at the planet and there didn't seem to be a deep bench and Jimmy never would've fit the roll. It's honestly hilarious to me as Steve Lombard, Morgan Edge and Jack Rider would all fill similar rolls over the years to this one, while Sydney would likely be Cat Grant, the planet's gossip columnist, these days.

At any rate we get a quick recap of superman's origins that also belies that this musical is goofy as shit, using comic panels and leaving subtly at the door as this is superman's rocket in this version

I'm all for it though: the musical's clearly meant to be tounge and cheek and is trying to be funny.. but is that rare work that's both genuinely funny once in a while and so bad it's glorious. Someone wrote a joke this corny, thought it was funnya nd put it on tv. Someone had to assemble this prop and I salute them.

So we get clarks teen years, him becoming superman all in miniture before we get our first number. We Need Him. And I have enough praise for later numbers I can comfortably say this is dogshit and not feel too bad about it. Like it is just bad. 80% of it is just them saying WE NEED HIM, WE NEED HIM, WE NEED HIM, WE NEED HIM, WE NEED HIM, WE NEED HIM

Listening to the original version, it was more of an operatic crowd number originally.. why they dumbed it down to the point of being grating I have no clue. While this does update the arangments, the arangments aren't really BAD for the most part but this is just.. awful.

Thankfully we soon get our first planet scene and our general characterizations for our bullpen: Clark is going with the old "he's really a mask for superman" routine, with Clark having a very whiny voice i'd swear was doing a rick moranis if rick was acting at that point. God there was a time when rick moranis wasn't a thing. Such dark days. It's fine... like I said in the clash of the superheroes review, i'm not a fan of "clark is just a costume superman puts on", but this musical is going for camp. Having everyone forget Clark's even there and exagerating this dynamic to all hell works just fine.

What dosen't is Lois. Lois feels like a prop in this: she loudly goes "scoop" in a shrill voice, never realizes Clark is there and genuinely kinda sucks. She's mostly there for Clark to pine over, the villians to kidnap later and that's it. I'm so relived Crisis on Infinite earths gave us the modern lois: no nonsense, hard nosed, but with a kind nature versus "SUPERMAN MUST MARRY MEEEEEEE". It's too Amy Rose for my taste.

We get our next umber it's superman next.. and this one is also not good and once again can be blamed on the rearrangment taking away the orchestra and replacing it with.. nothing.

Thankfully we're rescued from this by the oldest of superman's foes.. the mafia! The sad part is out of superman's three big bads in this film.. it's the closest to being true. It's still not entirely true as looking into the first 10 issues or so of action comics, it's mostly shady buisness douches, corrupt wardens and other conmen, putting the comic WAY ahead of it's time, it's still entirley plausable he fought some mobster in a sterotypical suit in his early career.

So the cartoon gangsters added to this version work for me. It helps their just so fun: their over the top, goofy and fit this over the top and goofy musical like the hats they all wear. They also get the first good number of the musical, It's a Swell Country, which was made for this special but I honestly coudln't tell as it's really good and like "Mean Green Mother From Outer Space" should be added to future stage versions. IT's a fun song about how it's a "Swell country" for criminals, and will be even more swell once they take care of superman

Back at the planet, Lois interviews Abner Sedwick. Sedwick tells lois MIT has death ray and Clark overhears, becomes superman and easily takes care of it. He seems to have foiled Sedwick's grand scheme.. but it turns out having him stop the death ray was part of it.

Later in Sedwick's office he gets a solo revenge, this weird shatner style number where he sing talks a lot. And also actually sings. Sedwick however.. is the best. He talks to the audience a lot and his motivations are hilariously petty: he just abrubtly reveals why he wants to rule the world: to destroy sweden. And why? Because he keeps coming in second place for the noble prize. Ten years in a row. I honestly think at this point their doing it just to fuck with him and are doing so at their peril.

Turns out Max was there the whole time and pieced it all together.. and it also turns out he dosen't care that Sedwick is evil as he also wants to kill superman. I've seen worse meet cutes, i'll take it.

Max comes back to the office and we get what Jess perfectly described as

The Woman for the Man is a good song and works well out of context, a lot of these songs do, but my god is it uncomfortable to watch two minutes of a guy hitting on a woman who just.. is not interested while he does not get it. Reminds me of what a younger me might of become had he been a bit more of a douche and ab it less awkward and I don't care for it. Lois tells max to fuck off and he vows revenge on superman because it's superman's fault his sexual harassment no jitsu didn't work for the 80th time.

So while the cartoon mobsters decide Sedwick might be worth kidnapping because superman is gun proof, Max blows off Sydney

To go talk to sedwick who reveals his plan which is honestly, especially for something like this... really clever. Superman's too powerful to beat normally.. so their going to break him mentally.

Clark has other problems though as we get

With You've got Possiblities. The song itself.. is utterly fantatsic. I'd actually heard this one around but never knew it was from a superman musical. it's an utter classic, being hilaroiusly dismissive and Swit's super 70's version works. And unlike other rearrangments while i'll admit the original is better.. this one's still good and there's more reason to do this "update": the original is such a big song, you kinda HAVE to make it your own and Swit does.

That said the gag for the first half is that Clark isn't intrested... and Sydney won't take no for an answer. Clark DOES come around eventually.. but it's still deeply uncomfortable, even more than the max stuff as it's clear they aren't on clark's side here like they were with lois.

Clark and Sydney hook up.. and then this never really comes up again because they presumibly cut that part of the plot out for time.

So we get Sedwick's plan: he's going to put a bomb under city hall

Again it's clever: the death ray was so he could plausably throw a celebration for superman at MIT , and then blow up city hall at the same time. now he has Max, Max can slander superman in the media for missing the attack and this will destroy him mentally.

The two then sing you got what I need aka

Yeah there's no way around this Max and Sedwick are gay as hell and this musical number is gay as hell and being bi as hell I love every minute of it. Suddenly the two villians just come off like their going to make out any second from now and given their both asepects of lex luthor it works. I honestly wish they had end up together: their both egotistical, petty and hate superman. It's a great foundtaion for a relationship.

They get interuptted by the mobsters, btu Sedwick decides he wants kids after he realizes their ALSO after superman. Well henchman.. same thing really. Either way their adopting these sterotypes.

We then get back to the planet as Lois falls in love with clark because he's always there.

Yeah once again they just.. step up a subplot for time's sake. She sings a song about it. Once again it's not great. I do not know why they kept this subplot, it impacts nothing. The syndey thing really impacted nothing. This musical is somehow a LOT happneing, max and sediwick's evil plan, falling in love and adopting a family of mobsters, sydney and clark, lois and clark, sexual harassment, more sexual harassment, blowing up sweden, and also nothing of consequence happening and i'm somehow here for it.

So with clark kent happy it's naturally time for the universe to shit on him.. wait no that's peter parker. The Universe is going to take a steamer on clark's life anyway as our power couple pull off their plan, with superman at his celebration and meeting Jerry and Joe, two hippies based on Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, superman's creators. it's a sweet touch that only gets sweeter later, but for now the explosion happens and Sedwick's able to turn the crowd against him thorugh the power of "comic book unvierse characters can be real dicks"

Superman is now hated and clark's frustrated, while Sydney is fed up with max's crap and gies us a song. And for once.. it actually DOES feel necessary this scene is happening. Not only is max kidnapped during it but it gives payoff to sydney's crush on max

The song is the underrated "Oh Do You Love You" a REALLY fun song i'm shocked didn't blow up like you got possibilities. It's one long take that at max's ego and it is AWESOME. Loretta Swit can REALLY sing and while she got to show it off with possibiliteis she really gets to go all out here.

Max is abudcted during it as Sedwick thinks he's superman. Max asks "Husband are youf ucking high", pointing out the obvious: why would he do all this frame superman shit if he was. They figure out it's clark, they always forget about him, as did Sedwick's computer, so Sedwick heads to clarks to finish off their foe while Max has lois kidnapped.

We then get another song.. and sadly another weak one. Seriously this musical bounces between all time bangers and "please god make it stop" The Strongest Man in the World is about superman's vunerablility which SHOULD work and I like the staging of him changing into clark as he does it, but the awkward singing and

Suck the energy out of it.

Sedwick shows up and reveals he' knows who clark is. He then proceeds to psychologically break him, accusing him of pretending to be clark as a gag, being a hero to lord his power and of being a freak. This leaves superman in a super depression and thus he can't rescue lois when the mobsters kidnap her.

It's then the table turns as everybody betrays everybody. We also get another lois song and I genuinely feel terrible for Lesley Ann WarreN: Three numbers.. and all of them awful. Moving on Sediwck betrays max and then is betrayed by the mobsters who even give their king boss the award for best criminal just to make sedwick feel worse. Id ont' remember him teling them about the noble prize thing but he's also the kind of guy who strikes me like he'd bring it up every chance he got.

Superman then.. goes.. to drown himself...

Yeah just.. the fuck. I get it was the 60's/70's, these jokes were okay but it's just a weird turn. He also can't drown himelf because he has super lungs GET IT IT'S FUNNY BECAUSE HE CAN'T DIE BUT WANTS TO.

Thankfully this segues into the musicals best non musical scene: Joe and Jerry runn into supes again.. and upon seeing his crisis admit part of why they love him..is that he is a freak. He's not normal, he is diffrent. and that's okay. He gives hope to all the other "freaks", all the outcasts who need someone to cheer and to look out for them. He's the defender of the downtrodden

With his confidence back, superman arrives and we get the best number of the muiscal, Pow! Bam! Zonk! a gloriously cheesy number where Superman cleans house. It's a nicely silver age segment of superman giving plnety of one liners as he talks about how he's regained his sense of self and easily beats up the mobsters with some great funny bits like them shattering a blackboard over him or two using ONE MOBSTER AS A BATTERING RAM. I'ts one long fun sequence showing how awesome superman is and David WIlsons ings the hell out of it. It's cheesy, fun, and incredibly well coregraphed. A great climax.

In the end our hero triumphs, our villians have amnesia so their good now and max is good to syndey though maybe she'll consider a throuple with sediwick. DA END. Seriously it just kinda ends. Lois is back into superman, tha'ts it. Go home.

It's a Bird It's a Plane It's Superman is fun as hell. It's not super good: only a few jokes land... but it manages to be cheesy so bad it's super. It's got great numbers dotted with hilarously bad ones, goofily petty villians, wacky mafia mobsters, and a truly bonkers plot that while itnetionally so has aged to the point it's even more zany than intended. Add in a weird lack of superman, a truly awesome final number, and some goofy effects and title cards, and you have a good time. Well worth the 90 minutes. Check it out on youtube. Stick around for the commericals and thanks for reading.

#superman #it's a bird it's a plane it's superman #lois lane #clark kent #musical theatere #musicals #abc #dc comics #broadway

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whump-side · 2 years

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Whump Challenge

I got tagged by @whump-captain to participate in the challenge. If you see this and want to participate, feel free! Don't by shy~ 1. Favorite whump trope(s)? Anything that'll make a whumpee bleed from the side. Shot, stabbed, you name it !

2. Least favorite whump trope(s)? I'm really not into whump with a whumper or pet whump.

3. Top 3 whump scenes and why? No.6 episode 11. Oh man, this whole episode goes so hard, if you know, you know Detective Conan Chapter 251-254. I remember obsessively rereading these chapters as a 8yo kid No third place because there are 100 scenes fighting for the 3rd place in my head so I'll leave this empty

4. Top 3 characters to whump and why? Lance from Voltron. I love goofballs getting whumped. The switch between their goofy personalities to just pain, yes. Kaeya from Genshin. If anyone has good whump fanfics, please send them this way. This man is a walking whumpee Can't think of a 3rd character so I'll say my OC Birb

5. Favorite fandom for whump (show, series, etc)? Anime/manga, animated show (Voltron, Avatar, in these kind of styles where adults look like adults) or Webtoons

6. Do you prefer written or watchable whump? Watchable but I also enjoy written

7. Do you also like hurt/comfort? Hell yes !

8. What do you think the difference between hurt/comfort and whump is? Hurt/comfort : gentle pat pat to soothe the pain Whump : stab stab to do the pain

9. How would you explain whump to someone who’s not familiar with it? Angst but add pain, blood and injuries to it.

10. Is there any old whump you particularly enjoy? (say, pre 2000?) It's gonna be 2000 exactly : Mulan. The moment when she realised she got hurt by Shan Yu.

11. Why do you think you like whump? Good question it's always been there since I was really young.

12. When did you realize you liked whump? Never, as mentioned before, it kinda was there all the time.

13. Favorite posts with whump (gifsets, picspams, etc) ✨Art✨

14. Are you “out” to people in real life? My bff know that I love "angst" especially when it's bloody. I think I told them once that I found the whump community, but I'm sure I didn't say the word whump specifically

15. How did you find the whump community? I was probably looking at "injured" or similar tags until I think I found an anime whump gifset and connected the dots when I saw the tag "whump"

16. Any unusual mediums you like for whump (plays, music, vlogs, etc)? Stock photos. With enough imaginations, lots of things can be whumpy. It's like using a filter but with your brain.

17. Any meta about whump you’ve been dying to share? None that I think of at the moment.

18. Whump fic(s) you’d love to see? I'd love to read some Thoma whump from Genshin Impact. Haven't check now if there's something new with him

19. Whump you’re looking forward to? (Maybe something teased or something you haven’t seen yet?) I am well fed with whump at the moment 👌

20. Top 3 favorite whump fics? Oh god. I never save fics and then regret it when I want to read them again. The Purity of Sin by IcyPanther. I red it in one sitting before going to bed and then I realized it's 4am when I was finished There was a fanfic with Lance getting pneumonia while being stranded with Shiro and I can't find it ;-; A fic with my fem!Hawkle and Fenris my bff wrote me a few years ago 👌

21. Tropes you think are overdone? Whumper/Whumpee and captive whump. Let whumpees be hurt by nature in the wild far from any humans for a change.

22. Tropes you think we could use more of? Environmental whump or whump without a whumper.

23. Favorite sites/archives for consuming whump? Tumblr, AO3, Pinterest, Youtube

24. Have your whump preferences changed recently? If so, why? Recently nothing has changed, but I'm always down to explore new tropes. Like I did with a tiny whumpee some times ago

#whumpchallenge #whump challenge #whump game #sorry for the long post I can't make the read more thingie work for some reasons

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fayewonglibrary · 1 year

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FAYE fever rages on (2004)

After 15 years, this diva is still rising by Elisa Chia

When a pop star's "crossover ceremony" (jumping from one record label to another) happens aboard a luxurious ocean liner - with dramatic fireworks display as the backdrop, no less - it's a telling sign that this is not just any other music idol.

Faye Wong had just that when she inked her contract with Sony Music 16 months ago in Hong Kong. She is, for want of a better description, a super-diva.

The 34-year-old - known for her fashion eccentricities and icy cool persona - will zip into town on Sunday to promote her Chinese album, It's My Style, as well as plug her movie, Leaving Me, Loving You.

And fans are ecstatic.

"Faye is my dream goddess," a fan by the name of James gushed in his entry to Today. He hopes to be one of the five who'd be granted a personal audience with Faye. "An autograph and a picture will make my dream come true. Imagine how a mere mortal feels when he or she is allowed to stand beside a goddess."

Indeed, 15 years on in showbiz, the Faye fever still burns. But whether the Beijing-born Hong Kong-based star has reached a peak in her singing career is debatable.

"She started out with mainstream music and then went on to experiment with various alternative styles," said long-time fan Karan Seah. "In the latest album, it's just a mix of both. I don't see her surpassing that level of creativity that would wow audiences again."

But Karan added that she doesn't see Faye's popularity waning in the near future.

Tan Li Yi, a DJ at MediaCorp Radio's YES 93.3 FM, agreed.

"It's not over for Faye, as yet. Musically, she has just moved into another phase. Her songs used to cater to the masses, such as Sky and I'm Willing. But now she conveys her individualism through her songs."

The experienced DJ must be speaking the mind of the award-winning diva.

In an interview with Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, Faye, who draws influences from The Cocteau Twins, The Cranberries, Sinéad O'Connor, Bjork, and Teresa Teng, acknowledged: "My taste in music is too off-mainstream and only a few people appreciate that… I know what the masses like and I know they skip my compositions and listen to the commercial tracks.

"I have too many business partners and I must consider their interests as well. I'm more mature now and I strike a balance between my personal interests and commercial value."

Still, facts and figures say it best. As Paul Khor, a marketing director of Sony Music, pointed out: Two of her new songs, To Love and Carousel, have already hit No. 1 on the music chart of YES 93.3 FM. And the album is doing really well, all over Asia as well… Every magazine's dying to put her on their cover.

Faye also just competed eight sell-out concerts in Hong Kong, he added.

'Nuff said.

COME FACE TO FAYE

Faye Wong will be signing her CD, It's My Style, on Sunday at 5:30pm at Plaza Singapura. Fayenatic fans can catch another glimpse of her when she appears with actor Leon Lai at Bishan Junction 8 on Monday to promote their film, Leaving Me, Loving You.

THE FAYE CHART 1987: Faye and parents moved to Hong Kong from Beijing 1989: Launched her debut album, Shirley Wong, a stage name she used then. Won a female newcomer (bronze) award by Hong Kong's Commercial Radio. 1991: Took a one-year hiatus in New York to study music. 1992: Released her album, Coming Home, which became her first platinum record 1994: Used her real name Wong Fei (aka Faye Wong). Made her acting debut in Chungking Express. 1996: Married Beijing rocker Dou Wei 1997: Gave birth to daughter Dou Jing-tong 1999: Divorced Dou Wei. Lost her temper when a local journalist asked her about it. Faye snapped at him: "None of your business!" and stormed off in a huff. 2000: Walked out of a private function hand-in-hand with Cantopop bad boy Nicholas Tse, 11 years her junior 2001: Took a two-year break from the music scene. Starred in her first Japanese television serial, Love From A Lie 2002: Came back with a bang! 2004: ?

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SOURCE: TODAY

#2004

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reasoningdaily · 7 months

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The Guardian: ‘We are all mixed’: Henry Louis Gates Jr on race, being arrested and working towards America’s redemption

The first time I met Henry Louis Gates Jr raised more questions than it answered. It was the year 2000, I was still a teenager, and he – already a distinguished Harvard professor – was hosting a launch for his new BBC and PBS series Wonders of the African World.

I remember the occasion as a series of firsts – my first TV launch party, first documentary series I’d seen on African civilisations, first encounter with a real-life Harvard professor. I remember wondering whether the circumstances were normal. The venue was the British Museum, an institution that harbours a practically unprecedented quantity of colonial plunder. Was it, I wondered, a deliberately ironic choice? Were all Harvard professors as friendly and personable as Gates, whom everyone calls “Skip”, and was charmingly informal and kind? And perhaps most pressingly, was it normal for Harvard professor TV presenters to dress as Gates so memorably had, in shorts, socks, and a ranger’s hat?

Gates, whom I am meeting again for the first time since that day 24 years ago, remembers it for entirely different reasons. “I got in a lot of trouble for that show,” he says, cheerfully. “I was the first black film-maker to talk about African involvement in the slave trade.” And, he adds, with undeniable pride: “It was the first internet controversy involving black folks!”

The documentary, which followed Gates as he examined ancient civilisations from Axum to Nubia and Great Zimbabwe to Timbuktu, was indeed controversial. Alongside the African cultures he visited, he demonstrated great interest in African complicity in the transatlantic slave trade, an interest that managed to alienate almost everyone who was black.

African scholars complained that Gates revealed an approach to African culture through a western-centric, American lens. African-American scholars claimed his emphasis on black involvement “got the white man off the hook for the Atlantic slave trade”.

I’m speaking to Gates over Zoom. I’m in uncharacteristically rainy Los Angeles, he’s in sunny Miami. As we speak, he turns his laptop screen around, attempting to goad me – successfully – into jealousy at the sight of blue sky and serene ocean from his seaside condo. He is in Florida for a family wedding, and our call is periodically interrupted by good-natured family members coming in and out, as people mill around preparing for the big day. Family is important to Gates. His new book, The Black Box: Writing the Race, opens with the story of his grandchild Ellie, who inspired the book’s title.

Born recently to Gates’s daughter, who is mixed race, and his son-in-law, who is white, Ellie “will test about 87.5% European when she spits in the test tube,” Gates writes, adding that she “looks like an adorable little white girl”. And yet when Ellie was born, Gates’s priority, he reveals, was to make sure her parents registered her as a black child, ticking the “black” box on the form stating her race at birth. “And because of that arbitrary practice, a brilliant, beautiful little white-presenting female will be destined, throughout her life, to face the challenge of ‘proving’ that she is ‘black’,” Gates writes.

Any discomfort flowing from this – both Gates’s decision and his perception of it – is deliberately intended as a commentary on the discomfort of race itself. How can race not be contradictory, Gates suggests, when it was constructed in service of racism, and yet has been alchemised into a cultural identity celebrated by those most oppressed by it?

The Black Box applies this analysis to the lives of famous African Americans. The poet Phillis Wheatly, an enslaved young woman who was required to “prove” to white observers that she was capable of writing the poetry she so eloquently composed. The abolitionist Frederick Douglass, who constructed parental relationships – the reality being that he knew little of either his mother or father – to refute ideas, prevalent at the time, that if a black person was intellectual, that was because of white parentage. The history of what black Americans have both been called and called themselves, encompassing a fascinating and ongoing debate about the usage of “negro”, “coloured”, “African American”, and “black”.

That work began far away from Harvard, in a working-class black family in the hills of West Virginia. Gates’s father had two jobs, one at a paper mill and another as a janitor, and his mother was a home-keeper, and later a cleaner for a white family. After attending the local public school, Gates obtained an undergraduate place at Yale in 1969.

Although proudly black, the family vaguely knew it had white ancestry, particularly through Gates’s paternal grandfather. “My grandfather looked so white, we called him Casper, after Casper the Friendly Ghost,” Gates laughs. “I mean his skin was translucent!” Gates had thought one ancestor – his paternal great, great-grandfather – had been white. But when he tested his DNA, he discovered a different picture.

“Imagine my surprise when I received my first DNA results, and I’m 49% white!” he exclaims. “What that means is that half of my ancestors on my family tree for the last 500 years were white, and the other half were black, and that was an amazing lesson to me. So, what does that mean about identity? It means that I was socially constructed as a negro American when I was born in 1950. But my heritage, genetically, is enormously complicated.”

This discovery set Gates on a path that has become perhaps the dominant part of his legacy, as the host of a popular PBS show Finding Your Roots, in which he leads other prominent Americans of all racial backgrounds – figures including Oprah, Julia Roberts, Kerry Washington and Quincy Jones – on a similar journey, through DNA testing and genealogy, in which they trace their family tree.

“I have never tested an African American who didn’t have white ancestry,” Gates says. “And that’s quite remarkable to me.”

“Paradoxically these DNA tests deconstruct the racial essentialism we’ve inherited from the Enlightenment, because they show that we are all mixed,” he continues. “It’s a mode of calling those categories into question, showing scientifically that they were fictions, and freeing us from the discourse that sought to imprison us in the black box, the white box, the Native American box.”

The tightrope Gates walks lies in rejecting blackness as a racial category, while embracing it as a cultural tradition. His most recent PBS documentary series, Gospel, which relays the origin story of gospel music, is perhaps my favourite work of his, celebrating both the heartbreaking beauty of black spiritual tradition in America, and its seismic impact on global culture.

When I share my emotion at the series, Gates is unable to resist subverting the theme. He bursts into a rendition of Can the Circle Be Unbroken?, a 1930s country number by the white gospel group the Carter Family.

“[On a cold and] cloudy day/ when I saw the hearse come rollin’/ for to carry my mother away/ Will that circle be unbroken/ By and by, Lord, by and by,” he sings, in a surprisingly rich tenor.“White people wrote that song, black people love that song!” he exclaims.

The current climate, in which political tribes are more polarised than ever, has only deepened his resolve to push back against the idea that black people should all agree. In this, he sometimes comes across as a man from another age – a more charming one, real or imagined – in which everyone could sit down together and work it all out.

“I grew up in a working-class town. People are goodhearted. They want what everybody else wants: to make enough money to live comfortably, to send their kids to college, to be able to go on vacation, to have leisure time, to have some joy in their life and not just be punished by drudgery, not have economic anxiety,” he says.

Gates’s stance on reparations is a case in point. The murder of George Floyd in 2020, and the current threat to black history studies from rightwing Republicans – some of Gates’s own work has been banned from schools in Florida under Governor Ron DeSantis – have only accelerated calls for restorative justice for enslavement.

Gates acknowledges the wrongs but disagrees with the solution. “Affirmative action plans go a long way… I think that’s a form of reparation,” he says. “But I just could not imagine any group of Americans deciding to dip into their pockets and pay a cash settlement for all that our enslaved ancestors suffered. I don’t think that’s realistic.”

When I disagree – citing examples of other societies that have paid reparations, Gates is firm. He even describes calls for reparations as “racial bullying”. “The bottom line is, you can’t bully people with calls for reparations because of the legacy of slavery,” he insists. “So we need leaders who are thoughtful and nuanced and sensitive. I should know. I’ve been in America for 73 years.”

Gates’s optimistic view of American decency was famously pushed to breaking point in 2009, when he – already a famous professor and TV personality – achieved unwelcome notoriety. Returning home from filming in China, he was struggling with the lock on his door, as he entered his own property. A call from a neighbour – who reported a suspicious black male attempting to enter a house – led to the arrival of police. Gates was initially suspected of breaking into his own home. When it was established that he lived at the property, he was arrested anyway for disorderly conduct. Widespread coverage – which made international news – pictured an angry Gates, handcuffed, being led away from his own front porch.

Gates was released after Harvard sent its lawyers over. Further controversy ensued when President Barack Obama commented on the debacle, calling the police’s decision to arrest Gates “stupid”. The entire affair was resolved in a meeting at the White House in which Gates sat down for a beer with the officer who arrested him, the president, and vice-president Joe Biden.

The “beer summit”, as it became known, sparked wider conversations about racial discrimination in policing. Gates took a conciliatory line. “My heart went out to the officer when he told me he was just scared,” Gates says. “He had just wanted to go home that night to his wife. We shook hands and he gave me the handcuffs he had used to arrest me. And they’re now in an exhibit in the Smithsonian,” he adds, with a weary air of triumphalism.

Beers with a well-intentioned black president and messages of racial conciliation seem a lifetime away in the current political climate. Yet Gates says his own teaching practice remains unthreatened by fears of censorship or backlash. “Fortunately, I have the freedom to teach, whatever way that I want and whatever content that I want,” he says.

Gates has been protected, perhaps, by his refusal to conform to the norms of either academic or celebrity life. He is one of the few people to have achieved fame as an academic, thanks to his long TV career. He credits that not to American broadcasters, but to his time in Britain, early on in his career. “My time in the UK was fundamental,” he says.

“One time we went to this Indian restaurant in Cambridge,” Gates recounts. “And Soyinka brings his own chilli. I mean, this Nigerian chilli he would make and carry with him – it was engine oil! And they said to me: we are from your future. We brought you here to tell you you’re not going to be a doctor. You are meant to be a professor. You’re going to be a scholar of African and African-American studies, and you’re going to make a difference.”

The prophetic nature of those remarks must have become obvious when Gates’s first book, The Signifying Monkey, was published in 1988, applying post-structuralist analysis to African-American vernacular and literary traditions. Since then, Gates has made a name for himself as a leading voice of African-American literary and cultural history. Yet it is his TV career that put him on a steady path to becoming an American national treasure. It was the British producer Jane Root, Gates tells me, who recruited him to present an episode of the long-running BBC series Great Railway Journeys in 1996, travelling with his two daughters through southern Africa.

“The whole conceit was this professor of African-American studies taking his mixed-race daughters to Africa to find their roots, only for them to say: ‘Our roots are in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I’ve got nothing left in Africa, I want a Big Mac,’” Gates laughs. “The Guardian called it National Lampoon Goes to Africa, and that was just so honest and fresh. I would be giving my daughters this pompous lectures about Livingstone and, you know, they’d be rolling their eyes. And it was great.”

The success of that episode led to Gates hosting an entire series, Wonders of the African World, the show where I first met him all those years ago. “My whole life as a film-maker, I owe it to Jane Root, and to the BBC,” he says.

The concept so central to Wonders,of the descendants of the enslaved reconnecting with Africa, is as old as the enslavement that displaced them. Yet its modern iteration has exploded in recent years. Ghana, the west African nation that has long positioned itself as a hub for the “return”, now regularly records hundreds of thousands of additional visitors from the black diaspora, with festivals celebrating global blackness and ancestral connection. “I love it!” Gates says, of this growing phenomenon. “I think all African Americans should do two things. Take a DNA test to see where in Africa they’re from. And I think they should visit the continent.”

The return is a joyful movement in which black people seek to heal the bonds severed by enslavement and globalisation. Yet if underneath it lies a pessimism – that racism makes western nations unliveable – it is not one that Gates shares.

He acknowledges that America is broken. “I remember under John Kennedy and certainly with Bobby Kennedy, and with Martin Luther King, we thought poverty was a disease that could be cured. No one thinks that today,” he laments. But rather than offering a way out, he believes in the country’s redemption, and hopes he and his work will play a role. “We have to fix it,” he says. “And we have to fix it together.”

In typical contrary fashion, Gates turns to histories rooted in the darkest side of America’s racial capitalism to find inspiration for believing in America’s potential. At the turn of the 20th century, when black women faced racist characterisation as “thieves and prostitutes”, they retaliated by forming “coloured women’s clubs”, to improve their image, foster racial pride, and advocate civil rights.

“I think of that movement,” Gates says. “Their motto was ‘lifting as we climb’. And I think that should be the motto of American capitalism. We lift, as we climb.”

The Black Box: Writing the Race by Henry Louis Gates Jris published by Penguin (£25). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

#american racism #Black and white #Henry Louis Gates Jr #‘We are all mixed’: Henry Louis Gates Jr on race #being arrested and working towards America’s redemption #white supremacy #white lies #biracially american #america is biracial #biracial #Their motto was ‘lifting as we climb.#enslavement and globalisation #racism

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dankusner · 7 months

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My Shell Shock at Michelle Shocked

Hers is still the fall from ideological grace that pains me the most

‘Dog bites human’ isn’t news.

‘Rock star talks crap’ isn’t either.

We listen to their music and tend to accept that they will both act and sound off like assholes.

It somehow goes with the territory, and while not all stake their claim to an outsized plot in Jerksville, plenty do.

When I think about the lyrics of many of the songs I have on the playlist on my phone (just the one, on random — I’m a simple soul, and prefer it all mixed up in a bucket, like Mr. Creosote), there are plenty that I now feel a little uncomfortable with.

From Hendrix’s Crosstown Traffic to Bowie’s China Girl to Pulp’s Disco 2000, there is, in particular, a lot of casual sexism in there.

I’m too old now to fill in the Swiss cheese holes in my music collection if I get too fussy about lyrics tossed off on a tour bus decades ago. I tend to cut them some slack until they cross the Rubicon of voicing the real-world opinions of real wankers.

Lookin’ at you, Steven Patrick Morrissey. George Roger Waters? Guilty as charged.

Those two hurt, because as a teenager I, and most of the outsiders, losers, freaks, and misfits of my generation, felt they were genuinely on our side, expressing our angst, and sharing our pain. And their works continue to carry that emotional and artistic power for me even now.

Comfortably Numb remains one of my favorite songs to this day.

Trudging slowly over wet sand, back to the bench where your clothes were stolen.

Still, for me, the greatest opening line ever penned. (Yeah, I was a real bundle of laughs as a teen.)

Then they turned into reactionary proto-fascistic assholes. And I turned the page. No biggie. They can settle down with Long John Cleese to a game of Texas fuck ’em at the Last Chance Saloon, while I ride my high horse out of town.

So long, ex-pardners.

But the one that really stopped me in my tracks, genuinely upset me even (which is stupid, but hey, that’s Homo shitforbrains for ya), was when Michelle Shocked came out with all her born-again Christian homophobic crap 10 or 15 years ago now.

And I’m probably being oddly sexist myself in feeling this way about it.

Men get to talk shit and we just laugh or at least shrug it off, but women have to be ideologically pure? Is that what I’m saying? I’m sure there’s an unconscious element of that mixed in there. Which is maybe what annoys me even more about the whole thing.

Shit, why did I ever dive down this rabbit hole?

But really it comes down more to the esteem in which I held her as a performer, as an advocate for social justice, as a perceptive, nuanced poet of the human condition.

I was first introduced to her work by a friend I met on a language course when I was 17. He gave me a C90 cassette (hey, remember them, old-timers?) of The Texas Campfire Tapes and Short, Sharp Shocked, with an impressionistic ballpoint pen version of the riot police arrest photo of the latter as an insert.

I played it to death. I still do to some extent. If I had to list my 10 favorite albums, Michelle Shocked is the only artist who would be in with a chance of getting two entries on the list, ahead of the Rolling Stones, the Pixies, Saint Etienne.

On Desert Island Discs (we can all dream, can’t we?), I would find it hard not to include both The Ballad of Patch Eye and Meg and (Making the Run to) Gladewater. At least.

Aside from being a supremely talented and sensitive singer-songwriter, though, Michelle was a mensch. Someone who so obviously cared about everyone, showing tenderness, affection, and understanding even when poking fun at the small-town rednecks of Gladewater, but above all championing the cause of those who are excluded, neglected, marginalized, misunderstood, and brutally discriminated against.

In a much more dedicated, intense, and personal manner than The Smiths or Pink Floyd.

And then she starts coming out with all this shit about gay marriage being the greatest sin on Earth, and God will judge them, and she’s the biggest homophobe on the planet and how could anyone ever think she was a gay champion or icon?

And then denying she’d said it? And doubling down after being shown the proof, that audience members had recorded, as shell-shocked as all those of us who admired her as a poet, a performer, a person? And going on the Piers Morgan Show to explain herself?

What the absolute fuck?

I still don’t get it. I should perhaps try to understand the pressures, the limitations, the confusion that might have led to such a horrific ethical meltdown. Show the same succinctly forensic but openhearted interest in human failings that I so appreciate in her work.

But you know what? Fuck it. Life’s too short. Humanity’s too precious. Values matter too much. Sometimes one strike’s all you get before you’re out.

I’m still shocked. But I guess I’ll still be listening to The Ballad of Patch Eye and Meg on my desert island.

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classicalmusicdaily · 1 year

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From his debut as soloist in the choir of the Sistine Chapel to his role as leading tenor in the most prestig- ious theatres in the world, the career of Vittorio Grigolo is a story of talent, passion and dedication. Born in Arezzo and raised in Rome, he studies singing at the Sistine Chapel’s Schola Puer- orum cantorum, under the direction of Maestro Domenico Bartolucci. It is in the Eternal City that he first appears, at just 13, as the young shepherd in Tosca at the Opera House in Roma, beside Luciano Pavarotti. At 17 he makes his debut as a tenor, the following year he begins to make a name for himself abroad, interpreting Don Narciso in Gioacchino Rossini’s Il Turco in Italia, at the Kammeroper in Vienna. At 23 years of age, in 2000, he is the youngest tenor to inaugurate the La Scala in Milan with the Verdi inspired concert to open the season. In just a few short years Vittorio Grigolo begins to perform on the most important stages in the world, under the direction of Riccardo Chailly, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Myung-Whun Chung, Daniel Oren and Antonio Pappano. In 2010 he debuts overseas with the role of Rodolfo in La Bohème, which crowns him as the new star of the Metropolitan Opera House in New York. The repertoire of Vittorio Grigolo includes the leading roles in Italian and French opera: La Traviata, La Bohème, Rigoletto, Elisir d’amore, Lucia di Lammermoor, Faust, Roméo et Juliette, Manon, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Werther and many others. Vittorio, it’s so nice to meet you again in Vienna and, of course, to have the chance to chat about your most recent professional achievements! You are finally back to the Wiener Staatsoper… when was the last time you sang on this stage? Do you like working in Vienna? Did you enjoy singing in Tosca last month? We came on March 28th and we loved your performance! Congratulations! I didn’t perform in Vienna in the past two years and I came back at a very important time for me (but also a very difficult one, both historically and personally) with an opera, Tosca, that has always given me great satisfaction. It couldn’t have been better! Vienna is a special city for me and I have a very special relationship with its theater and its public. Indeed, these are pretty difficult times: it’s been more than a month since the war in Ukraine started. Your fiancée, Stefania, is Ukrainian and she was in Kiev when all of this started. It must have been so difficult for you to step on stage having these thoughts in your mind, but the show must go on, right? You chose to send a strong message during the standing ovations of your Tosca performances, through a T-Shirt. In the past, in 2010 if I remember correctly, I wore a T-shirt at the Royal Opera House in London with the words “Ciao mamma, Ciao papa! Vi voglio bene!” and later, not long ago, I made one for my love Stefania, my fiancée, here in Vienna. Sending messages with T-shirts is a habit that I stole from football. I’ve always loved this kind of things and I think that opera singers always “score a goal” with their singing, their high notes and of course during the most wanted time of the performance … “the applause”. I also have to say that in Vienna, when you give it all, the public feels it right away and there always is this incredible, warm standing ovation that repays you all the energy you’ve given. When they start screaming “bravooo” and they applaud we get the same emotions as the football fans during a game. That’s the time for us singers to share who we are (not just what we think we are) and what others want us to be when we’re impersonating a character. In that moment, I think, we are even more real, and that’s why I always say that the show still goes on even during the curtain calls. This enthusiasm led me to that big misunderstanding during my tournée in Japan with the ROH. After that incident was cleared by an official statement, I said that I will forgive but will not forget the press that, without double checking information, made the allegations that they did.

Unfortunately we live in a world that needs bad news in order to sell newspapers: we can see it even nowwith this horrible war that is going on. As for my t-shirt message, I wanted to show my true opinion, which fortunately was not distorted by journalists. I think it was the right time and the right opportunity to take a stand, even though I don’t like politics very much. War should be always avoided: millions of people are perishing and suffering tremendous consequences that will mark the rest of their lives, if they survive, for the interests of a few. I am against war, I am against someone who decides to send someone else to die without that person having decided on their own. During my Tosca’s performances, I understood even better by having both sides singing with me in the same rehearsal room. We are artists and I’ve always believed that music cannot be related to political decisions. Art and music are the glue that brings people of all kinds together, and there shouldn’t be any walls. Music, in fact, is the only common language that everybody can understand. That’s why on my T-shirt I decided to include not only the Ukraine flag, but also the Russian one: I believe that peace will come only by an act of love between both countries. reposted from https://opera-charm.com/

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darckcarnival · 1 year

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@oathofpromises for Ashley Graham

Continued from: Here

Needless to say that Darck cared, was an understatement. Though unhinged some of her mental state might be at this stage in her life, these early 2000's years, the woman had still gone out of her way to help where she could. Reassure as a whispering voice from the shadows,. Leave goods, or clues, here and there in the open when she could. But to outright physically intervene was... Something that was rare- yet still had come to fruition. At least, a little bit, once or twice-

However the woman couldn't just move on when all was said and done. Much as she may wish to. No, instead there was the bad habit cropping up again, paranoia forcing ones hand to shift in darkness, watching out of the shadows to at least check in on those that had gotten out of Spain alive. One of which of course, being Ashley-

Of whom... Suddenly seemed to feel, or sense, someone watching. In this dark bedroom. Whispering out little comments of questions. As if trying to coax a reaction. Yet some of the comments that were made- it worked. Getting a reply from the shadow. She remembered.

She remembered.

Quiet settled in once more while the blonde young lady spoke. Taking in what was being said like a welcome weight to settle upon drifting nerves. The poor kid had been through hell and back, yet still found something good from it in the end. The friend she had made with Leon- and apparently that voice that had helped her through. Maybe best not to comment on how the shadow did it's best to help her survive either.

A soft breath seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere in the darkness, quiet and muted. Until finally the shadows seemed to thicken further in one corner of the room. Letting moonlight gleam just enough within, to shine off something. Lenses, sunglasses. Purple ones suddenly coming into view. With a shape along with it, but no real details. They didn't leave the sanctuary of the darkness just yet, but at least coalesced more obviously.

Movement, a gentle thunk- something sounding like a boot resting on the floor. Like a step, or a crouch, as the body lowered down. And that voice which followed was the exact same as it had been months ago. Soft, concerned, and calm. Although maybe curious and awed. "Not a lot of people do remember me or what I do, so I'm a bit... Surprised... Leon doesn't always recall me either." But that was a tale for another day.

Another shift of weight, like the person shrouded in blackness was taking a full seat now on the flooring. "That kind of trauma... It will follow you, Ashley Graham. And it can help mold you, you can use it, instead of letting it control you. You need to talk with people to, don't bottle it up... So then, How you feeling? Other than torn up." May as well offer a moment of someone to talk with, unbiased, and probably wouldn't be seen in public. "I'm glad to see you've recovered, by the way. Physically at least."

#oathofpromises #Presidential Daughter :: oathofpromises #Creeper Gonna Creep :: Darck In Character

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nikakistos · 4 years

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The Perfect Closure of EreMika

The title is pure clickbait (as always), there will be lots of tags (as always) and this post will be huge. As always. So, let’s examine and evaluate the perfect conclusion of the most important relationship in Attack on Titan. We will analyze why this is the best conclusion they could have gotten and of course we are going to talk about what their scenes meant for their relationship, their feelings for each other and the themes of the story.

First, let’s ask the question: What was the purpose of this chapter? Ending the fight obviously, but also giving closure to the relationship between Eren and Mikasa. Now, there were 3 questions that needed to be answered in order for the two of them to have closure.

Why did Eren say to Mikasa that he hated her?

What does Eren feel for Mikasa?

What would have happened if Mikasa had given Eren a different answer back in chapter 123?

Isayama answered all 3 of them in a spectacular way. Let’s see how he did it. The chapter literally starts with Isayama, via Mikasa, setting up the closure. This was achieved by having her wonder if this really was the end for her and Eren. Could it be that their last interaction ever ended with him saying that he hated her?

Isayama answers that with a big, fat NO.

That’s the purpose of Mikasa’s vision. Mikasa’s vision is not there to introduce us to Alternate Universes or to portray her as a delusional fangirl that can’t cope with reality. It’s purpose is to answer the above 3 questions. And that it does.

Essentially, Mikasa’s vision is a “What if” scenario. If Mikasa had chosen the ideal for her answer back in chapter 123, Eren would have abandoned everything and lived with her. This means that Eren is also in love with her. He said that he hated Mikasa, because he wanted her to forget him. That’s why he also asked her to throw away the scarf.

Mikasa though, being the truest representation of all major, positive themes in the series says no. She chooses to remember him. That’s essentially the meaning of life. That’s what Armin taught to Zeke back in chapter 137. Memories of everyday life. That’s the meaning of life. Back in Trost, Mikasa said that she couldn’t die, because she wouldn’t be able to remember Eren. Even back then, Mikasa always knew the true meaning of life.

Afterall, the series heavily criticizes the usage of memory manipulation. Deleting memories or altering them have been methods empoyed by the Royal Family for years, hiding the truth from the people. One of the themes of the Survey Corps is remembering their fallen comrades and carrying on the torch. Mikasa forgetting Eren would be an insult to the themes of the story. As would be if Eren was revealed to have been sending fake memories and dreams to Mikasa out of pity for her.

Finally, Mikasa decides to kill Eren. Not because he hated her or because he didn’t have romantic feelings for her. Because she had to save the world and because that’s exactly what Eren wanted. Back in chapter 133 Reiner foreshadowed Eren’s desires. He explained that it is very hard for Eren, mentally, to handle the murder of the entire human race. Through Reiner, Isayama reveals that Eren wants someone to end it all for him. That someone was Mikasa. That’s why Mikasa knew where to find Eren. His relieved face when he saw her swinging the blade said it all. That was Eren’s design and Mikasa delivered.

And so, the chapter that starts with Mikasa thinking that the only closure she would get with Eren was the “I’ve always hated you”, ends with the first and the last kiss between the two of them that puts all of her worries to rest.

Is Mikasa delusional?

I’ve seen this being thrown around, so i have to also tackle said point. No, Mikasa is not delusional. This wasn’t a fantasy that only she experienced. This dream of hers is the same dream that Eren had back in chapter 1. Eren experienced the exact same things she did in the dream. We even see him with his titan marks. It is clear as day that they shared these moments.

Also, i have to give credits to Isayama here for his usage of “itterasshai”. The word generally means “Go and come back safely” and is usually said to people leaving the house. For Mikasa, Eren is her home, but she is also home for him, as shown in the RtS arc:

These were the perfect parting words for the two of them. Nothing else could encapsulate their relationship better. Eren of course, won’t come back, but that’s the irony of the word here.

Moving on to the next point, Mikasa’s characterization in this final arc is about her seeing Eren for the person he truly is and stop ignoring his faults. It starts from the Marley arc and it concludes with chapter 123 where she realizes that this was simply part of Eren’s nature.

He always had it in him to become the monster that he became. However, he always had a different side to him. A side that had been shown to her a few times. At first, when he wrapped the scarf around her and later when he asked her “What am i to you”. Finally, it manifested as a desire to live quietly with her in their shared dream. It would contradict her development and characterization in the final arc, to have Mikasa start seeing an incomplete Eren again, after realizing earlier who he really was. Mikasa understood who Eren truly is and she accepted him and continued to love him anyway, even though she didn’t agree with his genocide.

It is not out of character for Eren to run away with her either. At least not in that instance. The series highlights the moment that he asked Mikasa “What am i to you” as a pivotal one. Sure, under normal circumstances, Eren would have chosen to fight, but we saw him breaking down just moments earlier. The only person that could have saved him was Mikasa. Alas, that wasn’t meant to happen.

In any instance, the biggest indicator that Mikasa is not just a delusional girl who kissed the decapitated head of the man she loved, when he never really loved her in the same way, is Ymir’s face at the end of the chapter.

Ymir, as i have mentioned in previous posts, is a girl who never knew real love during her lifetime. She didn’t understand what she was looking at, when she first say a couple kissing with their friends cheering them on. And after that she was sentenced to a cruel life, with a man who never loved her and only viewed her as a tool. This girl, remembers longinly that scene of the couple kissing for 2000 years. She was waiting for 2000 years to see real love again.

She witnessed that through Eren and Mikasa. In a scene that would have otherwise been painted in a negative light, Ymir’s warm smile at the sight of the final act of love between two people who never got to be together the way they wanted to, clears any and all doubts regarding Eren’s feelings for Mikasa and the latter’s sanity. Eren reciprocates Mikasa’s feelings and he was alive for enough time to kiss her back, before completely fading away. Eren and Mikasa replaced the married couple and Ymir replaced the crowd that was cheering at them from 2000 years ago.

Of course, one might ask, could Eren really kiss her? Didn’t she just take advantage of him? No, he did kiss her. The way the scene was directed, it shows us that the events, which take place in their dream, mirror the events in real life. Just look at Eren’s lips one moment before Mikasa kissed him and compare them to the picture above, where they kiss. They are different.

Also, you have to remeber that decapitation doesn’t kill immediately and does not immobilize facial muscles. That was the entire reason that Eren and Zeke managed to get the Coordinate. Eren survived long enough from Gabi’s shot to make contact with Zeke. Even his facial expression changes as you can see below:

More importantly, was there really any chance that Ymir would look at Mikasa beheading and kissing Eren, while also smiling in approval, if Mikasa was a delusional girl who was unable to understand Eren’s feelings for her up to the very end? Most of all, do you think she would have allowed him to die, without experiencing real love? She died in such a way and she stayed for 2000 years in the Paths waiting for someone to show her real love. Eren was her benefactor. Would she ever allow him to die in such a way, when she was being mistreated (sexually and in many other ways) by King Fritz? I doubt it. Actually no. I don’t doubt it. I’m sure this is not the way we are meant to interprete the scene.

Eren’s relationship with Mikasa, from the very start, is an allegory for the world of AoT. The world is cruel, but is also very beautiful. Eren’s story with Mikasa starts with him murdering in cold blood her kidnappers (cruelty) and then warmly and gently welcoming her to his family by wrapping a scarf around her (beauty). Their story ends with Mikasa decapitating him (cruelty) and kissing him (beauty).

Eren’s tendency for violence has always been portrayed as going hand in hand with his better side. That side has always been represented by Mikasa. It is only fitting for them to have their most beautiful moment happening almost at the same time as their most cruel one. This is how Isayama juxtaposes this duality:

If we interprete this scene as Mikasa being delusional and Eren not being in love with her we get a very disturbing and creepy scene, between an obsessed, psychosis-suffering girl who can’t understand the feelings of Eren, a genocidal maniac who never had any chance or willingness to live a normal life, even though there are hints of that, and a 2000 year old ghost who just happily smiled at the decapitation and forceful kissing of her emancipator. I am pretty sure this is not the message Isayama wants to send. Not simply, because it is a disservice to Mikasa as a character and to her relationship with Eren, which has been one of the most prominent and consistent part of the series from the very first chapter, but because it is also a huge disrespect to Eren as a character as well. Does anyone really think that Isayama would choose to write Eren’s death like that? Not a single important person in the entire story has gotten such an exit. Not even Floch. Even Zeke, who thought that his father never loved him and only used him as a tool, got to see that his father truly did love him, before finally dying. Of course Eren and Mikasa would get the same treatment.

What i mean to say is that Eren and Mikasa’s closure won’t be recontextualized in a way that will paint their feelings for one another and their relationship in a negative light. If anyone’s expecting that, he/she will be disappointed. Eren and Mikasa were confirmed as a canonical couple in chapter 138.

On the other hand, if anyone’s expecting that this wasn’t their real closure and that they will get an even happier ending, he/she is also coping hard. Eren died here in this chapter. There won’t be a scarf rewrap (i’m here to eat my words if it happens), because Isayama gave the couple a kiss. A kiss that was in the makings ever since chapter 50 dropped. And of course, there is not going to be a baby born to Eren and Mikasa. Like, no way it’s happening. Eren is not coming back to life as that would turnish the series and it’s ending.

In conclusion, Eren’s relationship with Mikasa ended in the same way it started. Violently and Beautifully. Tragically and Happily. They acted on their romantic feelings for each other the very moment they had to part ways forever. This is how Isayama hurts us. The essence of a bittersweet conclusion.

EDIT: EATING MY WORDS AS PROMISED. EREN DID REWRAP MIKASA’S SCARF. HE KEPT HIS PROMISE.

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theonewiththefanfics · 4 years

Text

Black Ice (one-shot)

Synopsis: Black ice is considered one of the most dangerous winter weather phenomenon. It appears after it’s rained or snow has melted and then the rapidly cooling air freezes it, leaving it as a shiny black mirror on the ground. A deadly shiny black mirror.

Pairing: Harry Styles x fem!Reader

Genre: angst, fluff

Warnings: swearing, mentions of hospitals and injuries

Word count: 8852

“God, Harry, it’s just one night!” Y/N exasperated, throwing her hands in the air. “One fucking night I wanna go out with my friends and have some fun. Is that really too much to ask?”

“I haven’t seen you in two months!” he snapped back. “So, please fucking forgive me that I wanna spend a night in with my girlfriend and have her say ‘no’ one time, and make me a priority. Is it so hard to reschedule?”

“Yes, Harry it is!” Y/N stood her ground. “Adam and I have been talking about this for three weeks before we could set a date and meet up. He fucking flew out here! To London! And it’s not my fault you haven’t been home in two months, so don’t put that on me.”

“No,” he shook his head pointing a finger at her. “Don’t pull that shit on me. You knew about my job, you know how it can be, how much I have to travel.”

“I get that, and I’d get your anger if I was fucking off with my friends on our anniversary without any notice or some shit, but I’m not! I made these plans ages ago. I told you about them! How could I have known you’d decide to ‘surprise’ me a week early?”

But the thing for Harry was – he did think there was an anniversary to celebrate. It wasn’t an official one, and he hadn’t told Y/N how much the date meant, but that day was the day they’d met a year prior.

***

He was in the middle of filming ‘Darling Don’t Worry’. This time they'd flown out of California to shoot a scene in the middle of the woods, in the cold of November, which as exciting as it was to have his acting career flourish, Harry wasn't too happy about freezing his ass off in the middle of nowhere.

Y/N, however, lived right next to those woods, her family house having been there for generations, while the location scouts of the movie had chosen the location because the aesthetic could double as the location of the woods behind the mansion.

Y/N’d been out on her daily run (well, daily complaining because Y/N, with all her being, hated running, and thought it was a sign you were a masochist. But her best friend Adam loved running and hated going alone, so he bribed her with the promise of pizza afterwards), when they’d run into pitched white tents, filming equipment and barriers encasing a part of the path they were on.

Adam’s eyebrows furrowed as he slowed his pace, and Y/N thanked god for that because she felt like she was about to pass out.

“What’s going on here?”

“Dunno,” Y/N huffed. “But we should probably leave.”

But instead, Adam grabbed her by the bicep, dragging her forward to the set. “Nope. Come on.”

“Adam!” she hissed. “What the fuck are you – “

“Hi!” He flashed a woman standing by the railing a smile. “Could you-uh-tell us what’s going on? Why’s the path blocked?”

“A movie’s being filmed. Sorry for the disturbance.”

“Mhm, and when do you think you’ll be leaving?”

That she hadn’t expected, given how typically when people saw a movie set, they’d be more than intrigued in getting into a shot or finding out about who were the stars, not when they’d be going away.

“Oh, uh,” she stammered. “I’m not too sure. Depends if the snow starts falling and how much we manage to shoot. Sorry. But uh, would you be so kind and find a path around?”

Y/N jumped in, flashing her a kind smile. “Yes, thank you. So sorry to have disturb –“

“You do realise this is a public place?” Adam raised an eyebrow. “We have a right to be here.”

“Adam, shut up,” Y/N groaned. “We can run around them, it’s not a big deal.”

“But this is our route!”

“Adam for fuck’s sake! It’s the woods, you don’t own them!”

“Exactly!” he said. “And neither do they! They have no rights to infringe on our ability to get to the sea.”

That’s when Harry had noticed her, and to this day Y/N had no clue as to why he’d fallen for her. He was conversing with Florence about the upcoming scene when his ears caught the very end of the conversation, green eyes snapping to where two people in running tracksuits stood.

One of them was a tall burly man, muscles practically ripping apart his clothes at the seams, the other was a shorter woman, hands-on-hips, hair kept away by a headband which also covered her ears, and the most done expression on her face as she glared at her companion.

They were talking with a nervous assistant; Harry could see by her stature and how her head kept snapping to the side in hopes of finding someone above her to deal with the two strangers.

“Adam, I swear to god, I’ll punch you." Harry heard the woman exclaim. "Leave the girl alone! We can run around.”

“But I –“

“Adam!”

“Fine,” he grumbled as he threw the assistant and apologetic look. “Sorry.”

“ ‘S okay. Have my preferred cycling route as well, so yeah… Sorry.”

Harry watched as the woman next to the person, Adam, shook her head and gestured to where the barriers curved around, starting up on a slow jog, and when they passed where he was standing by the trailers, he could hear them still arguing.

“Oh my god,” Harry heard her whisper while looking at the ground. “I’m friends with a fucking Karen.”

“I am NOT a – you’re Harry Fucking Styles!” Adam shouted so hard, it startled Y/N, and when she looked over, it was like a deer in headlights before relaxing and both of them slowed their pace.

“Sorry,” she gave him an awkward glance. “He’s a fan, but we’ll be going and stop bothering you...”

“No, no,” Harry shook his head, putting his hands in his coat’s pockets and smiling. “ ‘S alright, you’re no bother. I’m always happy to talk to a fan.”

“Yes, well, don’t encourage him. Soon enough, you’ll be besties, and Adam here’ll be turning your life into absolute chaos.”

He scoffed looking down at his friend. “I’d like to think I’m taking you out of your boring routine, Y/N, and giving it some spice.”

“Anyway,” she gritted out. “It was lovely to meet you, but uh, we should probably be on our way. You have to be somewhere.”

Y/N’s eyes glanced over Harry’s shoulder, where a nervous AD stood, bouncing on her feet, a weary smile on her face as she caught the singer’s eyes and motioned with her head he was needed back on set.

Harry nodded and wanted to turn back to tell the two to come by whenever they wanted (well mainly Y/N), but when he turned around, the two were already quite a few feet away. Just as he was about to leave, he heard Y/N shout, “Congratulations on the three Grammy nominations, by the way. ‘Fine Line’ was amazing.”

“And that’s a compliment!” Adam hollered jogging backwards. “She only listens to shit from the early 2000s.”

“Adam, shut up!”

With that, Harry was left to watch the two disappear behind the trees, a feeling he was quite familiar with settling in his chest.

It was three days later, when he saw Y/N approaching the set barriers, hands in her pockets, as she rolled her neck. Their eyes met, and even, from the distance, he could see her smile split apart her face, but when she just waved without the intention of coming any closer to the lot, Harry rushed to the side calling out to her. “Hey!”

“Hey!” Y/N responded chuckling and ducking her head down. “You alright?”

“ ‘M alive. How ‘bout you? You doin’ fine?’”

“The bar’s so low?”

“I guess. Won’t be able to get you to nurse me back to health though, which is why I’m in the cold again.”

She wiggled her eyebrows at Harry. “If you wanted to see me, there's no need to lose limbs or bits of yourself.”

Harry hadn’t expected her to be so upfront, but he couldn’t lie and say he didn’t like it. Made it easier for him to understand if his advances were welcome or if he should back off. “So uh, no Adam today?”

“No, he has a late shift at work. Which means I’m spared from the running.”

“Not a fan?” he looked at her with a quirked brow, seemingly saying ‘you’re sure dressed like you are’.

“Do I look like someone who likes stabbing pain in her side and having her heart ripped out of her chest?

“You’re just not breathing properly.”

Y/N sighed. “If one of you gives me any more advice about how to properly run when I don’t even want to run, I swear I’ll stab you.”

“Okay!” he threw his hands up in surrender, laughing. “No more talk about running if I wanna keep my head on my shoulders. Where are you uh going? You don’t have to answer, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Y/N squealed on the inside, but bit her lip to keep the grin away. She’d been dying to talk to Harry since they’d briefly met but had no real reason. Not that she had one now, but she’d had a horrible day at work and needed to clear her head, and what was better than the forest air (also she could scream there without anyone really caring). “You’re not, so don’t worry. I’m uh I’m going to the sea.”

Harry’s eyebrows rose. “There’s sea nearby?”

“You’re like a fifteen-minute walk away from it,” she chuckled, stuffing her hands in her coat’s pockets. “Should really be more aware of your surroundings.”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere.”

Y/N tilted her head. “Yeah, you’re kind of right. But it’s places like these where you can find the best spots.”

“Will you show me then?”

She looked at him with an unreadable expression, and he could only hope his nervousness wasn’t as apparent, because Harry was more than convinced his erratically beating heart could be heard miles away. But then she nodded, giving him a wide grin, making one of his own bloom on his face.

“You sure you won’t freeze on your way there?” she said in a sarcastic tone eyeing him up and down, and Harry shoved her a bit.

He donned one of the standard down-jackets issued for the movie with winter boots, but given the costume underneath, he was chilled to the bone. “It’s bloody cold, and my toes are freezing off. How are you still standing?”

“Insulated shoes and thermal clothes. Kinda boiling actually.”

“I should steal ‘em.” He smiled at her. “Probably have frostbite by now.”

“Wow, you people from the South UK really are weak.”

Harry’s gasp made her smile as wide as a Cheshire cat. “How dare you!” He dramatically placed a hand on his chest, Y/N’s laughter erupting through the air. It cut through the yells and shouts from the filming crew, and made a warmth spread in his chest. “How do you know about the South versus North? You don’t sound like you’re from the UK.”

“Studied there for three years; had loads of flatmates from all around, let alone course mates.” Y/N chuckled and shook her head. “And to say that I thrived on the chaos was when you said North was better than the South would be an understatement.”

“Well, I guess I know where your loyalties lie.”

“Did you expect me to immediately swoon over you?” Y/N batted her eyelashes at him. “Oh, Mr Harry Styles. Your voice in ‘Kiwi’ was so good it fucked me to cloud nine. Will you please do that to me with your dick instead? Which you should take as a compliment again, considering kiwi is the only thing I’m allergic to.”

“Wait,” he looked at her, eyebrows up to the middle of his forehead. “So you have heard my stuff?”

“Well, I don’t live completely under a rock. I did say 'Fine Line' was amazing.”

“But you don’t really like it?”

Y/N shook her head. “ ‘S not that I don’t like yours or other pop stuff, ‘s just that I have a preference, and I guess it’s, as Adam said, ‘early 2000s shit’.”

A sly smile appeared on Harry’s face. “But could that include by any chance 'One Direction'?”

“Afraid not,” Y/N sighed giving him a pout. “When you came onto the scene, my heart was already taken by a boyband. And I can be a lot of things, but I most definitely a loyal bitch.”

“One band at a time kind of gal?”

“Exactly.” She beamed. God Harry had never wanted to kiss a person that bad.

“Duly noted, but I will need to know who they are, and how many graves do I have to dig? You know, for research purposes.”

“Going method now?”

“What’dya mean?”

Y/N shrugged sniffling a bit from the frosty weather. “Looked up a little bit about the movie. Need to know what kind of people might be around in the area. Psychological thriller. Wife. Rich husband. A dark secret. My guess – someone’s dead and buried. Also, the huge pit we walked past was kind of a give-away.”

He paused for a second before nodding. “Fair enough.”

A comfortable silence fell between the two as Y/N motioned with her head to where they needed to turn and made their way onto a new path when she spoke. “ ‘S not that I wasn’t a fan,” Y/N shrugged glancing at Harry from the side. “The songs were really catchy, but I guess I got tired of them? Like they were on the radio so much, it was a relief I didn’t have to hear the five of you singing about how I don’t know I’m beautiful.”

Harry threw his head back in a laugh. “Don’t worry. Sometimes we’d get sick of it ourselves. But umm, ‘Fine Line’… You said you liked it… Do ya’ have a favourite song?”

Y/N cringed. “Is it cliché if I say ‘Golden’? Because it’s ‘Golden’. I’m a sucker for a slow and then a ‘bam!’ kind of an opening.”

Harry shook his head. Now he was the one biting back a grin. “ ‘S not cliché. Was one of my favourites to write, so I’m glad you appreciate it.”

“Also, it makes me feel sunny? If that makes sense? Like – like when I listen to it, I feel warm and safe and just happy...”

He’d be lying if he said his heart wasn’t pounding in his chest at her words. Warm. Safe. Sunny. “Well,” Harry cleared his throat to keep the words ‘One day I’ll marry you’ at bay. Fuck, he'd only known her for like twenty minutes! “I’m glad you like it more than my previous stuff.”

“You just love putting me in uncomfortable situations, don’t you?”

He smiled, nudging her shoulder with his, and was just about gearing up to take a breath and ask Y/N out (before he could ask to marry her), when quick steps from behind him drew their attention.

Dressed in a typical 50s housewife dress with a black coat on top, Florence Pugh came to stand beside them, and Harry swore he saw mischief twinkle in her eyes as she raked them over both people and then settled on Harry’s companion.

“Hi!” she said giving Y/N a bright smile, and a wink to Harry, which passed the other girl’s head, given how she was absolutely fangirling right now. “I’m Florence.”

“I – yeah – I – you – I love you,” Y/N finally breathed out. “Fuck, I just, you know, 'Midsommar' was a fever dream, but I absolutely loved it, and I can’t wait for 'Black Widow' to come out. Oh my god, I think I’m gonna pass out.”

“Please don’t.” She laughed grabbing onto Y/N’s shoulder. “Feels like I already know you, but I’ve been dying to meet you actually. Created quite the commotion yesterday.”

You know how they say men can think of absolutely nothing, like have a completely blank page in their head? Yeah, Y/N was having that exact moment.

Florence tutted crossing her arms over her chest and looking at Harry with mock disappointment. “But Harry here just kept talking about you, without any intention of inviting you to the trailers, so I had to take things into my own hands.”

“You’ve been wanting to meet me?” Y/N breathed out, hands going into her hair, looking at Harry. “Oh my god, what is happening? Am I hallucinating?”

“No, you’re not,” Harry grumbled glaring at Florence. “Unfortunately. But we were on our way to the sea, so I’ll see you back on se-“

“Hello there,” Chris Pine’s smooth voice interrupted them, as he extended a hand for Y/N to shake as he jogged up to the trio. “I’m Chris.”

“Wow, your eyes are even bluer in real life.” Her own Y/E/C ones widened. “Did I just say that out loud?”

“You did,” Chris chuckled, “but I most certainly take it as a compliment. You said you were going to the sea?”

“Uh, yeah,” Y/N breathed out still gazing into Pine’s eyes. “Wanna join?”

Harry wanted to scream, but he couldn’t really. As much he wanted to tell both Florence and Chris to go away, he didn't. Seeing Y/N’s eyes light up as the two other actors conversed with her, laughed and joked around, made his heart expand.

It was insane to him, that a woman he’d seen twice in his life could have such a huge impact. It was like she’d been his missing part. Well, no. Harry didn’t like that notion – that the ‘right’ person would complete someone. People were complete on their own, but it was true to him that there was someone out there that’d make each and every moment special, someone who would help the other become better, but also hold them accountable when needed.

They wandered around the seashore, which like Y/N had said, was a fifteen-minute walk, for about half an hour before turning back to the woods.

By that point, she’d somewhat calmed down, and could actually comprehend what Chris and Florence were saying to her, and it was rather enjoyable to ask all the questions about Hollywood and the industry most people wouldn’t say on the record.

At around four PM when all of them got back to set and Olivia came to tell them they were wrapping up for the day, Florence, and Chris split from Y/N, telling her to come by whenever she wanted, while Harry said he’d walk her to the end of the trail.

“You know I’ll be fine. I grew up here, know these paths like the back of my hand.”

“ ‘S alright,” he shrugged his shoulders. “I’m sure they won’t mind much if I come back ten minutes later.”

“You know, you’re not how I thought you’d be.”

“What’dya mean?”

“I – I don’t even really know… just not how I imagined you.”

Harry didn’t know what to really do with that information, but the look on Y/N’s face most definitely didn’t seem like she meant it in a bad way. In fact, her shy smile and fleeting glances told him otherwise. At least he hoped he read her features right.

They said goodbye with soft ‘see you laters' and he watched her throw one last glance at him over her shoulder before he himself retreated and ventured to the trailers to start de-shedding the character of Jack for the night.

Harry plopped down in his seat with a groan, fishing out his phone from the pocket while the hair and make-up team did their work, taking the products off his face before applying moisturiser to the stressed skin.

Florence poked him in the cheek, and he swatted away at her hand, looking up from Instagram (or his attempts to find Y/N with just knowing her first name). “What’s wrong?” she asked, poking his pouting face again.

“She literally fangirled about everyone but me.” He huffed sliding down even further in his seat.

Florence raised an eyebrow. “Jealous, Styles?”

“No,” he scoffed crossing his arms. “Why would I be jealous?”

“Because literally both mornings that we've got here, you’ve been fidgety, keeping a watch of the path, and didn't calm down until Y/N appeared just now. So I’d say you’re absolutely smitten with the girl and are jealous because she’s more of a fan of us than you.”

“I know she likes me.” His eyebrows furrowed. “I think. She hasn’t told me to fuck off.”

“She’s a stranger you met in the middle of the woods. You should hope she likes you. But not too much. Otherwise, it could so easily become a scene out of a horror movie.”

Chris bit his lip looking at Olivia, who’d come in the trailer after having seen the group come back with an almost heartbroken gaze – it was clear as a summer’s day Harry was struck by the girl, but they had to face the music. “Harry,” he started. “You – you do realise we end filming here in two weeks, right? And she’s a local.”

“And?” his eyebrows furrowed at Chris’ words.

“You’ll be leaving in two weeks for another three months of filming, while she stays here. I don’t – I don’t want to see you hurt, but you have to realise that most likely nothing will happen.”

“And what makes you say that? Maybe she could come with.”

“Y/N is her own person with her own life, job and friends, which, as it seems is all set here.”

“Besides you don't really even know her,” Olivia said as well. “It's been two days."

“Sometimes a day is enough.”

A silence settled over them, as Harry tapped his phone against his nails.

“You guys, come on!” Florence came to his defence. “He likes her. Why not give it a shot?”

He'd flashed her a thankful smile and mouthed a 'thank you' to which she just gave him an encouraging nod. She was on his side. She believed he could do it. And he did. Using Florence's faith in him as a catalyst, a day later when Y/N had gone on her run with Adam, Harry had excused himself and joined the two.

Adam was thrilled to the bone, but he was also competitive, so after ten minutes of trying to persuade the woman to run faster so he could beat his previous time, he took off on his own, with a promise of meeting up by the shore. That’s when Harry grabbed Y/N by her bicep and stalled them both, confusion written all over her features.

“I uh,” he started. “I wanted to ask you something.”

“Yeah, sure. Go ahead.”

“I – “ he stuttered taking in a deep breath. “I – uh – and you have zero obligations to respond, but uh – I was wondering if you’d like to go on a date with me sometime?”

That made Y/N do a double-take. “You want to go out? On a date? With me?”

“Ye – yeah.” It was uncertain how the word came out, but it felt so good to say it. “Yes, I really do.”

“Sorry.” She shook her head looking at the ground with furrowed brows. “Sorry’s just, kinda hard to believe it.”

“ ‘Nd why’s that?”

“Well because the first time we met, I looked like a sweaty mess, the second, I could barely function around your friends and co-workers, and now, well now I look like a sweaty mess again.”

“So?”

“I just –” Y/N laughed but waved him off. “Never mind.”

Fear instantly took hold of his core at her statement, so he rushed to salvage what could be salvaged. “No, I mean if you don’t want, you - you don’t have to say ‘yes’. I’m not gonna be upset or any –“

“Harry!” This time Y/N placed her hand on his shoulder to stop his ramblings. “I’d love to go on a date with you.”

“You – you would?”

“Yes.” Her smile blinded him like the golden rays of sun which broke through the overcast sky. “I’d like to very much so.”

But it was Y/N’s tearful huff, a storm cloud compared to the warm light from his memories, which brought him out of the fond thoughts and into the icy right now.

“Because unless it revolves around Harry Styles, it doesn’t matter, right?” she let out a pained laugh. “Because unless he’s there to have all the spotlight on him, it’s not important. Unless it’s not something he wants to take part in, it immediately needs to be cancelled or rescheduled because god forbid someone made plans without him.”

He grunted in disagreement. “You know that’s not what I meant!”

“No,” she snapped, snatching her purse and coat. “I get it. Very clearly. I’ll show myself out.”

“Don’t be so dramatic!”

She scoffed, glaring at him. “Call me when you get your head out of your ass.”

The door slammed shut, and Harry sat down onto the sofa to scream into a pillow.

***

Y/N’s sight was blurry as she drove down the street. A light snow had started to fall over London, so she was twice as careful, knowing Londoners had zero clue how to function when snow hit, and no one had winter tires.

“Fuck,” she choked out, wiping away at her cheeks.

She’d had fights with Harry before, it wasn’t like they were perfect. From the outside they looked like nothing could ever be wrong, but they were human. They had flaws and tempers and ideas and beliefs, and sometimes they clashed, but it’d never been as bad as it was that night.

She loved Harry, Y/N truly did. She’d even had dreams of the two of them in some far-off cottage in the Italian mountains living a domestic life, but she also just wanted one night to herself. To let loose and think about her own needs and wants, while Harry was away doing the same. It wasn’t selfish, not in her mind.

It’d been her who’d uprooted her whole life to be closer to Harry, not the other way around. She was always the one cancelling and making new plans with her family or friends just so she could spend a spare second with Harry. She was there for his sleepless nights and there for his knock-out concerts. Why couldn't he let her have this one thing?

She was sitting by the wheel at a red light taking in deep breaths to calm herself down.

The light turned green, and her hand was slightly shaking as she changed gears.

Y/N released the clutch and pressed down on the gas.

Two lights came rushing from the side.

She gasped.

A sharp pain went through her side.

And then it was all black.

***

Anne was going to rip Harry a new one, as she rang him for the fifteenth time, but he still didn't pick up. After the accident and the nurses being unable to contact Harry, they obviously called Y/N’s parents which were next on the emergency contact's list, but given how they lived outside of the UK and the next flight was only in four days, they immediately reached out to Anne, begging for her to go be with their daughter while they got there.

“And please tell Harry to fly over as well!” Y/N’s mum had cried. “I – I know he has work, but please.”

Anne had been shocked to hear Y/M/N ask that, having assumed he was already there, but she wasn’t going to let them get to Harry before she set him straight herself.

In the beginning, she’d been kind of sceptical, but after spending an evening together where Y/N, her and Gemma all did wine baking, and it had ended up in a disaster in the kitchen with the three of them crying from laughter while Harry stood at the entrance completely baffled and just so done with them, Anne knew Y/N only had good intentions with her son.

Anne’s love for her only grew from that point on, when she also realised just how much Y/N’s love language was giving. It wasn’t the kind of ‘hey, look, I bought you some fancy thing, now love me’, it was ‘hey, I saw how much you wanted this, I noticed how much it’d mean to you, and I love how happy it makes you. And if it reminds you of me, that’s just a bonus’, and Anne couldn’t help but become as protective of Y/N as her own kids.

But at that moment, as finally, after her twenty-seventh attempt, Harry picked up with a gruff ‘ ‘ello?’, Anne was about to burst with rage.

“You get to the hospital right now!” she hissed into the phone.

“What are you talking about?” There was a tremble in his voice.

The thing was, for two days since Y/N had stormed out, Harry’d been feeling sick. He thought it was due to the stress from the fight and from the pressure his label was putting on him, but now he understood it wasn’t that. It was his instinct telling him something bad had happened, and at Anne’s words, the bad feeling that’d settled in his stomach made his blood run cold. “Mum, what’s wrong?”

“Y/N was in a car accident, and you didn’t bother to pick up your phone.”

“I –” He stammered unable to process her words. “What? Mum? No…”

“You’re her emergency contact,” Anne spoke. “The hospital tried to call you a billion times, and you didn’t pick up.”

And that’s when he remembered all of those calls from unknown numbers. He thought they’d been some crazed fans who’d gotten his personal number, so he’d just blocked them. “Mum, no.” Harry choked out. “I didn’t mean to – we fought – mum…”

“She’s at St. Helen’s. Please get here.”

He immediately ended the call, and in the span of twenty minutes was at the hospital, which Anne was sure to scold him for because there was no way in hell anyone who didn’t speed would be able to get to St. Helen’s in less than forty minutes. The second she saw her son burst through the door, tear tracks down his face, all the anger and disappointment vanished.

“Where is she? Is she alive? Y/N!” he yelled across the hallway. “Where is she? Mum! Where’s Y/N?”

“Gem.” She patted her daughter’s knee as both of them stood up from where they’d been sitting at the chairs outside the recovery room assigned to Y/N. “Get a nurse, please.”

Gemma didn’t need an explanation or reasoning seeing Harry’s wild eyes, erratic breathing and shaky hands.

“Mum!” He practically sprinted after seeing the woman, grabbing her by the shoulders.

“Calm down, Harry,” she shushed him, pulling him in for a hug and feeling his whole body tremble. “Calm down, it’s alright. Gem’ll get you some help, but you need to breathe.”

“I – I’m not the one who needs help!” Harry pretty much screamed. “I need to know if my girlfriend is alive.”

Anne spoke in a calm voice as to not agitate him even more, and her heart broke at the sight of her son so utterly broken. “Harry, you’re about to have a panic attack, and you’re no use to Y/N in that kind of state.”

“So.” He took in a chocked back breath. “So she’s alive?” He didn’t know what he’d do if the answer was anything else but a resounding ‘yes’. There was no version in his brain of where his life could possibly lead but down if he had to go on without Y/N.

“Yes,” Anne nodded, smoothing his hair away from his face, and watching as he took in a deep breath of relief. “She was just wheeled in for her second surgery. Should be out in about four hours. ”

All over again his insides froze. “Second? Mum, tell me the truth – how bad is it?”

“Harry, this is routine,” Gemma put a reassuring hand on his shoulder having returned with a nurse behind her, the man keeping a close eye on Harry and his behaviour. “They did as much as they could the first time, but their priority was on the worst injuries. This one is just to set things properly.”

“Set everything right like – “

“Like bones and stuff…” Gemma shuddered, trailing off. “Y/N broke her hip, dislocated her kneecap, her ankle was shattered and she fractured her collarbone. They took her in so that the bones could be properly placed together and there’s a lesser chance of complications not only while healing but later on in life. But can you please sit down? So they can help you as well?”

“I – alright,” he conceded, taking a place on one of the stiff plastic benches, as the nurse came to him, took his pulse, gave him an inhalator just in case and some herbal tablets to help him relax a bit.

“You said they focused on the worst injuries.” Harry looked at his mother. “What were those?”

Anne sighed, leaning to sit back on the chair next to him and ran a hand through his hair. “A piece of debris punctured one of her kidneys. The bleeding was pretty intense, but they say it was salvageable, so she’ll still have both of them. Gem donated some blood.”

“Thank you,” Harry whispered, looking over at his sister who wiped a stray tear away from his cheek.

She shook her head. “There’s nothing to thank me for. Y/N is family. If she’d lost the kidney, I’d give her mine in a second.”

“The worst they’re worried about is the head injuries,” Anne said. “Luckily, she got away without anything major, but she definitely has a concussion and minor whiplash to her neck, so they want to keep an eye out for any side effects that could arise. They have another surgery scheduled for her in a week if recovery goes as planned. To take the stitches that won’t dissolve out and put in the ones that will.”

Harry sagged against his mother’s side, her palms soothingly running up and down his back. “She’s gonna be alright, love,” Anne muttered in his hair, pressing a kiss to his temple. “She’s strong. She’ll be okay.”

It was comforting for both of them – for Anne to have her youngest in her arms, to know he was safe and sound, and for Harry to be held by his mother, the person who always knew how to comfort him when times were rough, and at that moment, they were the roughest they’d ever been.

“You’ve got some nerve to be here.” Adam’s seething voice pulled Harry away from his mother’s embrace and watched as he rounded the corner with a coffee cup. He was quite sure he was keeping his temper well in check from how hard he was gripping the Styrofoam cup. “Fucking ignore her for two days while she’s laying in the hospital, and appear when it’s convenient for you? Is she some fucking toy for you to use when you want?”

Anne’s tone was consoling and pleading. “He didn’t know.”

“The hell he didn’t, he just didn’t want to know! They called you!” Adam pointed at the nurse’s desk. “And you let them go to voicemail. And then, better yet, you fucking blocked the number.”

“I didn’t know it was the hospital,” he weakly defended himself.

“Because you didn’t bother to find out.”

He didn’t have anything to say to that. And not that he really could think of anything when the surgery ward’s doors swung open and they watched as a nurse wheeled Y/N’s gurney back inside the room, while another wheeled her saline bag along with.

It was a terrifying sight to see. Her face was basically nothing but a swollen piece of flesh, bruises and scratches littering her cheeks, a neck brace to keep her head from moving while one leg was wrapped in a full-on cast, the other in one up until her knee and her left arm was in a sling.

He’d had nightmares about her before. Most of the times it was about Y/N leaving him because she could no longer do it, could no longer commit to the hectic lifestyle that came with Harry, and as he screamed, banging on the invisible window that separated them, she just walked away, his sobs carried by the wind in the other direction.

“You should go inside,” Anne whispered motioning with her head to where the nurses checked the monitors and how stable Y/N was. “I know you had a fight, but she’ll want you to be there when she wakes up.”

“How,” Harry gulped back the lump that’d risen in his throat. “How do you know? How do you know she doesn’t want me to just disappear? I wasn’t there when she needed me, I was – “

Anne put her hand on his cheek. “Because when she woke up yesterday morning for the first time, you were the first person she asked for. You. She wants you there. And it’s the least you can do for her.”

He nodded, then took a deep breath and entered Y/N’s room. Watching her lay in the bed, unmoving, without her usual grumpy features as she slept, made Harry sick to the stomach so much so, he thought he’d have to call back the nurse.

It was some twisted version of Sleeping Beauty, yet he knew a true loves kiss wouldn’t awaken her. Y/N just laid there, small breaths making her chest rise and fall, not even a flutter of her eyelids.

Harry had spent countless night watching her sleep, looking at how her lashes fluttered as she dreamed of something; how her forehead creased and small, incoherent noises passed her lips as she talked to someone in her mind.

Now, he was surrounded by none of that, only artificial reminders that she was still alive and fighting to get better.

With uneven steps, Harry made his way to the chair which’d been stationed next to her bed (he was convinced beyond belief that Gemma, his mum and Adam had all taken shifts to sit there, to be there for Y/N), and much like a king who knew he was unfit for the throne, Harry had to swallow a lump as he took the seat.

“I – I don’t know if you can hear me…” Harry took hold of Y/N’s palm and let out a sob of relief when he felt it was warm, not cold like he’d feared. “But I’m here for you. I’m not leaving. Not unless you want me to, so until you wake up…” there were so many words, so many apologies he wanted to say, but kept them at bay. Y/N deserved to hear them when she was conscious, so instead, he said, “I’m here, lovie. Get some rest, I’ll be here…”

With that he put his head on the side of her bed, twisting his face so he could look up at her, watch her chest rise and fall in a steady rhythm, and fell asleep to the sound the beeps of Y/N’s beating heart.

While he slept he dreamt again, the same terrifying dream of Y/N leaving, only this time she did look back at him, but her face was all wrong, her neck bent in a way it shouldn’t be, and eyes covered in a milky white.

“You weren’t there, Harry,” she said in a voice void of emotions. “So why should I be there for you?”

Harry was 100% sure if he’d been hooked up to a heart rate monitor while he slept, people would think he was going into cardiac arrest, but it sure would’ve shown it flatlining as his green eyes swept over his lover’s frame to check his nightmare hadn’t become a reality, only to be met with two Y/E/C sparkling orbs looking back at him, giving him the softest gaze in the universe.

“Hey,” Harry’s tone was quiet, afraid to bring even the littlest of discomfort to Y/N given her state, and he had to physically restrain himself from sweeping down to bring her in a hug.

What he saw on her face made his heart leap to his throat, as she smiled, genuinely happy to see him, lifting up her right hand, the only limb without a bandage on to cup his cheek. “Hey, love.” Her voice was scratchy like nails on a chalkboard, but to Harry, it was an absolute symphony. “Are you alright? Your eyes are puffy. Have you been getting enough sleep?”

“Fuck,” Harry choked on his tears looking up at the white ceiling before back at her, complete disbelief in his blood-shot eyes. “You’re the one lying in a hospital bed, with casts and bandages all over you, scheduled for a third surgery, and you’re asking me if I’m alright?”

If Y/N could, she would’ve shrugged as if that wasn’t the most self-explanatory thing in the world. “I’ll always want to know if you’re alright. ‘S not exclusively you that can care for people, you know.”

And there she was – his sarcastic, allergic-to-kiwi-but-‘Kiwi’-loving girl that never ceased to amaze him, as she made sure everyone else was alright before herself. And that made Harry break down.

“I’m so sorry Y/N. So fucking sorry. I – god – I – there are not enough words in any language to say how fucking sorry I am. I should’ve been here, should’ve never let you leave. This is all my fault.”

Through all that, through his choked back sobs and crying, Y/N’s hand had steadily remained on his cheek, wiping away the tears from underneath one eye before switching to the other side and making the little pearls of hurt disappear with just her touch.

“Harry, are you the weatherman?”

That was not what he thought she would say. “I – what?”

“Do you control temperatures and have not told me?”

“N – no?”

“Were you the guy who ran the red light?”

“No.”

“Then how is this your fault?”

“I – “ he stammered. “I shouldn’t have let you leave. I should’ve gone after you, found a way to make you stay or – or should’ve fucking stopped being so selfish and driven you to see Adam yourself.”

“Harry, had you tried to make me stay nothing would’ve changed.” Y/N sighed letting him lean into her touch, as she bit her lip, thinking over her words. “I was just so pissed, that I think anything you would’ve tried to do, would’ve only made it worse. And I’d rather be here with you than alone in my apartment crying in a tub of Hagen Dazs because of a broken heart.”

“You-you've got your priorities completely backwards.” He wasn’t laughing when he said that, but Y/N was.

“Maybe.” She raised her eyebrow. “But I don’t think so. The bones will heal, but the amount of love I have for you… I’m afraid you’ve ruined the thought of a future without you in it. We’ll talk,” Y/N swallowed hard. “We need to talk, but when I get better. Right now, I just wanna hold your hand and have you hold mine as I try not to kick the nurses trying to take my blood for tests.”

It felt inappropriate for Harry to smile, to feel happy about how Y/N hadn’t told him to go screw himself, even though he felt like he deserved it, but fuck was it impossible not to when his body felt so light, and her love chose to invade the dark corners of his mind to fill it with golden warmth.

She fell asleep not long after their small conversation, body too tired and in need of recovery, but like he’d promised, he was there for her when she awoke again, this time to a more familiar Y/N as she glared at the coffee cup in his hand, while he sipped, a ring clad palm gently pushing away strands of Y/H/C hair from her face.

“I hate that you can drink coffee.”

“Yeah, and why’s that?”

“Because I can’t.”

“I’ll happily buy you as many coffees as you like. Once you get better and are allowed to, of course.”

Y/N snorted and then winced as the action caused pain to shoot through her body. “Knowing you, it won’t be a cup of coffee or a coffee machine, but a fucking coffee chain restaurant.”

“Would it be that bad to own one?”

Her eyebrow rose at him in an incredulous look. “You know I can’t bake. Coffee shops include pastries, and I’m not the one who worked in a bakery. I can cook, I can clean, but make me make muffins from scratch, and I’ll set your house on fire.”

“You already did.” Harry laughed. “Gem and mum helped.”

“They supplied the wine, so I’m putting 60% of the blame on them.”

“You do realise that equates to 30% of the blame on each of them, and most of it is still on you?”

“Shut up,” Y/N smiled, weakly pushing against Harry’s arm, but the motion made him happy to know she was trying. “I was just in a car crash, so forgive me for not being that great at division.”

A knock at the door made Harry look up, Y/N not even attempting to turn her head to see who’d interrupted them, given how the first time she’d tried it with the neck-brace, it’d hurt so bad she’d passed out.

Her doctor was a man in his mid to late fifties with greying hair, Y/N’s medical record file slapped underneath his arm.

“How are we doing today?”

“Better than yesterday, I guess,” she responded.

“Well, you were out for most of it, so I’d say so.”

Y/N and the doctor chuckled, but Harry didn’t, as he thought of how bad, how absolutely tired a person has to be to sleep for a whole day. He’d had those days himself, and that was from being exhausted from work. He couldn't imagine what being in a bloody accident would feel like.

The doctor stepped forward a bit and extended a hand to Harry, introducing himself as Dr Tate, while Harry rose in his seat to accept it, but not wanting to move away an inch from Y/N.

“You must be the boyfriend.”

“I – uh – I can only hope I still am,” he let out a nervous giggle, which made his girlfriend slap his arm, a furrow on her face.

Dr Tate looked Harry over from head to toe, eyebrow raised at that, but all he said was, “We tried to contact you, seeing as you’re Miss Y/L/N emergency contact, but the nurses said it couldn’t go through.”

“He was filming overseas.” Y/N butted in, clearly having rehearsed what to say beforehand. “Flew over as fast as he could. I’m the luckiest person in the world.” Her tone was soft as a feather, but Harry’s stomach felt like it was filled with rocks.

“Is there anything I can help with?” he asked hoping to be given some sort of a task to do, to allow him to redeem himself some way.

“Well, actually yes. One of the injuries Ms Y/L/N sustained was a concussion,” the doctor said, “which could lead to some complications like headaches, migraines, spotty vision or amnesia.”

“Amnesia?” Harry wanted to vomit. It had crossed his mind, but having a professional say it made it all so much worse.

“Yes, and we’d need someone to be with her as much as possible, 24/7 would be desirable, to keep an eye on.”

Harry honestly hadn’t heard anything past the amnesia part, mind spinning in a circle that just screamed ‘she’ll forget all about you’.

“It’s nothing to worry about too much.” Dr Tate was quick on his feet, seeing Harry’s blank stare, and tried to diffuse any possible spiralling. “With Y/N’s cognitive abilities and having repeatedly excelled at the test without a single stutter, it’s very unlikely she’ll have those side effects.

“But it’s still a possibility, right?”

The doctor nodded, giving Harry a kind smile. “Which is why I’m informing you of it. To keep an eye out to see if anything changes so you could come in if necessary. But as I said – Y/N’s memory has proven to be intact so far. And I always say to trust the facts.”

“Harry,” Y/N placed her hand on his. “You know I won’t forget you.”

“I’ll uh, give you two a second.” The doctor exited leaving them alone, an almost sad silence over both of them.

“God I almost lost you to some idiot running a red light with no winter tires, and now you won’t remember me. And – and even with everything you’re going through, you’re still trying to protect me? Why did you lie? I – I wouldn’t have cared if you said the truth that I was an asshole.” Harry dragged both hands over his face, trying to keep the cry’s at bay as Y/N ran her hand through his hair in an attempt to calm him down.

“I’d prefer to think,” Y/N shrugged trying to tease him and make him crack a smile, “me being dead would be the worst-case scenario, not me forgetting you. And of course, I’ll protect you. Your reputation matters to me. Just because we had a fight doesn’t mean I’ll immediately run to everyone I can and say how shitty of a person you were in those specific ten minutes.”

But Harry’s lips didn’t quirk up, the tears didn��t disappear as the painful grimace on his face wasn’t replaced by the crow lines next to his eyes from smiling so much. “What if you – what if you forget you love me? What do I do then? I know I sound selfish and like the biggest fucking dick, but as pathetic as it is – I can’t go on without you. I don’t know how I could.”

Y/N’s heart broke at his words because if the roles were reversed if Harry forgot about her and fell out of love, she didn't know how she'd survive. She’d had those fears before, when he was away filming and she couldn’t follow; she’d been terrified because what they’d had was so new, he could easily move on, find someone better, someone who was familiar with his lifestyle. But any time those thoughts came to her mind, Y/N reminded herself of what she’d do. And that’s what she told Harry.

“Then you make me fall in love with you again. You’re great at that. Make me love you more with every passing moment.”

“And – and if you don’t fall in love with me again?”

Y/N shook her head. “Impossible, Harry. You made me fall in love with you after barely two hours spent together. And well, if you put your mind to it… who knows how much deeper I’ll fall.”

For the first time in two days, Harry leaned down and pressed his lips against Y/N’s. The kiss was soft and sweet, a barely-there touch, but it meant everything. It was a promise to one another to love unconditionally, to remind the other of it at every passing moment; it sealed their future to be spent together, and neither wanted it any other way.

Harry’s phone rang, eliciting a whine from Y/N as he pulled away to answer it. “It’s Florence.” He pecked her lips one more time. “I’ll just tell her to call back.”

He turned to the side for a second muttering a soft ‘hey, can you –‘ before whatever Florence told him made him pull away and extend the deivice towards Y/N.

“It’s for you.”

“For – for me? Florence is calling me?”

Had the two women become friends? Yes. But didn’t mean Y/N had an easier time not fangirling about her.

“Hi, Flo,” she breathed out, looking at Harry with wide, happy eyes. “Yeah, I’m alright.”

Harry sat there watching as his love talked to someone she looked up to, and someone he cared about. He hadn’t told Florence, but her encouragement meant the world to him, as she was partially the reason he’d gotten together with Y/N. After all, she’d been the one on his side from the very beginning.

Y/N giggled like a crazy person after the call ended and she handed Harry back his phone. “Florence Pugh just called to give me well wishes.” She gasped looking at Harry. “Do you think Chris Pine will too?”

“God, I love you,” Harry laughed with her, pressing their foreheads together.

They’d be alright, they’d make sure of it. No matter if a disagreement arose, egos needed to be put in check or black ice covered the roads. They’d get through anything.

Tags (crossed out wouldn’t take):

Everything tags: @lumelgy @palaiasaurus64 @supernaturalbaesduh @breezy1415 @crazy--me @thatawkwardlittlefangirl @sea040561 @staryeyedgirl @deathbyarabbit @s-c-a-r-e-d-po-t-t-e-r @reblogger-not-a-blogger @m-a-t-91 @dalilx @i-need-a-hero-i-need-a-loki @maladaptive-ninja-returns @averyrogers83 @in-the-end-im-still-trash @gallifreyansass @dewy-biitch @avxgers @unlikelygalaxygiver @magicwithaknife @ollyoxenfrees @bnhvrdy @tvwhoresblog @celebsimagines @thatkindofgurl @sj-thefan @teenwolflover28 @lestersglitterglue @im-squished

Harry Styles tags: @sarcasticallywitty15 @breezykpop @girlboss99 @harrystylesdoesntknowiexist @alliyjane @sirtommyholland

A/N: Listen, Linda, those pictures of Harry on set does things!!!

Also the being allergic to kiwi - that’s me. Like legit it’s the only thing I’m allergic to. I always hated how they tasted like pain, like it made my mouth sting and feel like pins and needles before going numb, and according to professionals, that’s a sign of being allergic. But I love ‘Kiwi’ the song.

P.S. my tags are always open :)

P.S.S. I don’t take requests, sorry :(

#Harry Styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagine #harry styles fandom #harry styles x reader #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x you #harry styles x fem!reader #harry styles x reader smut #harry styles angst #harry styles and you #harry styles and reader #harry styles and y/n #harry styles fluff #don't worry darling #one direction #one direction imagine #1d fan fiction #1d

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pr1ncessm00n · 3 years

Text

for sale or wanted — jean kirstein x fem! reader

series masterlist

prev | next , part two

warnings: cursing, porco being toxic lol. dates are wrong once again sorry !!

[ playlist : love again - dua lipa ]

eight.

Half asleep and ready to go to bed, Y/N fell back into her bed. She picked up her phone, hoping to mindlessly scroll through some TikToks. Instead, she was met with two messages. Audibly gasping as she read Porco’s name, she dropped her phone, hitting herself in the face in the process. “Ow!”

Porco? Y/N thought incredulously. What the hell does he want?

Contemplating asking Ymir and Sasha for advice, Y/N then decided against it. This was her life, she couldn’t expect her friends to guide her though it. But God, was she such a coward when it came to Porco. It wasn’t like he was Prince Charming, but Y/N had an extreme loyalty complex. She couldn’t ever allow herself to let go of people. Porco used to berate her for that constantly.

Why are you so clingy? He would ask.

Who’s the clingy one now? Y/N thought bitterly. She decided to ignore Porco’s text until she could think of a reply that wasn’t along the lines of “No, fuck you.” She slid her thumb over to Jean’s message.

Great. Another text asking to talk. Why couldn’t people just send their question and save a girl the anxiety? Y/N scolded herself for allowing her egotistical ex to ruin her mood. Jean didn’t deserve her snappiness.

Jean sighed in relief. Thank God she replied. He didn’t know if he could handle the mortification if she didn’t.

Y/N pondered for a bit.

Y/N laughed quietly to herself. So Jean could in fact match her sense of humor. She exited out of their chat, mindlessly scrolling through social media. She actively avoided Porco’s message, not wanting to burden herself with the chore of responding to him. What could he possibly have to say? She headed to Twitter, hopefully finding something relatable to retweet. As Y/N scrolled, she saw a familiar face appear on her timeline.

Recommended for you from contacts, the header read. Below it was about 3 profiles of people in her contacts she had not followed yet. Among them, was Jean.

Y/N’s breath caught in her throat.

Should I? She questioned. Would she be overstepping some unspoken boundary? What if she hurt her own feelings by stalking and seeing something she wouldn’t like/had no business seeing? Maybe she should just ignore it. She doubted Jean was some internet creep… but wouldn’t it be good to know if he was? Curiosity getting the better of her, Y/N decided to invade that boundary and look at his account.

He didn’t have much content from what Y/N could see. He just retweeted fancy cars and some funny memes. She spotted Connie, Sasha’s lifelong friend and Jean’s infamous roomie. She mentally hoped Jean didn’t tweet like Connie. That would be the ultimate ick.

Y/N’s thumb stopped scrolling, hovering over a tweet. Her heart beated ten times more rapidly.

well she is pretty lol, Jean’s tweet read. Tweeted just an hour after he met Y/N.

Could it be? Y/N wondered. No way. There’s no way it’s about me. I’m just jumping to conclusions. Why would he say that about me? I’m just being self absorbed.

She brushed off her inquiries, deciding to just stop stalking his account entirely. From what she already saw, there wasn’t anything suspicious or icky enough to make her want to not interact with him. And she was already paranoid, so every tweet she saw she would begin to assume it was about her as well. She was just getting her hopes up.

Rolling over on her side, Y/N placed her phone to charge and went to sleep. It was late, which was probably what was causing her mind to become fuddled.

——

“You should’ve told me Sasha’s third roomie was Y/N,” Reiner had said to Jean in the truck. “I totally blindsided her. Top ten worst encounters of my life.”

“Uh, care to enlighten me? Do you guys have beef or something?” Jean asked, perusing the radio stations.

Reiner sighed. “She’s dating- was dating- my childhood friend, Porco.”

Jean felt his stomach drop. “Oh.”

Reiner glanced at him before stopping at a red light. “I said dating. He dumped her like a week ago. It was pretty trash.”

Jean secretly felt more at peace hearing that. Poor Y/N, but.. she could probably do better than this Porco person.

“So what does that have to do with you?” Jean asked.

Reiner shrugged. “I guess I didn’t really help. She said she felt a little betrayed. Like I agreed with Porco and my friends that she’s the crazy one.”

Jean nodded. “So you were a bystander.”

Reiner sighed again, tilting his head in an I guess motion. “It’s just hard. Porco’s like my brother, and I don’t agree with how he acted… but maybe I should have spoken up sooner.”

Jean patted his shoulder. “Don’t blame yourself, man. That was between them.”

“Yeah. I could have at least told Porco to step it up, though.” Reiner murmured.

I’m glad you didn’t. Jean snickered to himself.

“So, you think she’s cute?” Reiner shot Jean a devilish grin. Jean rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, I guess. You goin’ to Historia’s birthday?” He slyly changed the subject.

“Is it open invite?” Reiner’s eyebrows scrunched up.

Jean shrugged. “I have an invite. Maybe you can be my plus one.”

Reiner made a “Hmm” sound in response, weary at Jean’s invite. “What are you dressing as if you go?”

“I was thinking swag era Justin Bieber.” Jean replied, smiling widely.

Reiner gave him a look. “You for real?”

Jean’s smile dropped. “What?”

Reiner laughed. “I’d pay money to see how badly you embarrass yourself with that.”

“It’s a 2000’s party?” Jean was confused.

“Yeah, but everyone does like, early 2000s. Think Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake.”

Jean shot him a curious look.

“What? Pop culture is my guilty pleasure.” Reiner explained himself. “And everyone knows Britney Spears.”

Jean hummed in response. “I just think you got a thing for pop girls.” He referenced the earlier Becky G mishap.

“I’m not even gonna deny it anymore.” Reiner agreed, defeated.

——

“Guys,” Y/N said the next morning. Ymir and Sasha were at the breakfast “nook” (a corner of their miniature kitchen designated for a small table that barely fit all three of them), Sasha eating cereal and Ymir chomping on an apple while scrolling on her phone. “Porco texted me last night.”

Ymir continued scrolling, unfazed. Sasha’s eyes widened and she swallowed her food before speaking. “What? Why?” Y/N glared at Ymir.

“Thanks for your interest YMIR, but as i was telling Sasha-“

“I’m Sasha.” Sasha cut in, obviously confused.

Y/N gave Sasha a look.

“Did you say something?” Ymir said, bored. She still hadn’t looked up from her phone.

“Ymir!” Sasha scolded. “Y/N’s telling us Porco texted her!”

“Who’s Porco?” Ymir replied, monotonous.

Y/N sighed in exasperation. “Are you stalking Eren again? I already told you to stop comparing your subscribers-“

“I’m not stalking Eren!” Ymir snapped defensively. “I’m…” She mumbled the next part incoherently.

“Huh?” Sasha and Y/N asked in unison.

“I SAID,” Ymir repeated, annoyed. “I’m looking up Britney Spears outfits. Historia wanted us to go as different eras of her. But I can’t find anything that matches my style.” She grumbled.

Y/N’s heart melted. It was adorable watching Ymir struggle to find a matching costume for Historia. It was like Marilyn Manson wanting to get along with a CareBear.

“Just go as JT,” Sasha said, chewing her cereal.

“One, close your mouth, and two, Historia asked for us to go as Brittney. I can’t just show up like a dude.” Ymir visibly deflated as she scrolled through countless pictures of a younger Spear’s iconic looks.

“Why don’t you try her bandanna phase? That wasn’t so over the top, and she wore mostly jeans.” Y/N suggested as she squeezed into the corner chair.

Ymir sighed. “I don’t want to wear a skirt or some bimbo shit. That’s y’alls look.”

“How do you manage to sound endearing trying to please your girlfriend while simultaneously insulting us?” Y/N wondered aloud.

“It’s a talent.” Ymir waved her off. “What did you guys get her though?”

“A giftcard to Urban Outfitters,” Sasha replied. “I got tired of searchin’. I put $50 on it. I think that should be enough for like, a shirt and a half. She better like it, too. ‘Cus I’m broke.” Sasha pointed her spoon at Ymir accusingly.

“I got her the Taylor Swift vinyl she’s been wanting. And some pink film for her camera.” Y/N added. Ymir nodded approvingly.

“I hope she likes my gift. I don’t know if I’m moving too fast though?” For the first time since Y/N mer Ymir, Y/N hadn’t ever seen her this distraught.

“Calm down,” Y/N reassured her. “You’ve been together for years now. I don’t think you can move any slower.”

Ymir rolled her eyes, leaning back im her chair with arms crossed. “It’s a small trip to Seoul. I know she’s been dying to go. It’s not like it’s anything she hasn’t seen before with her family… but I figure it’d be different with just us.” Y/N’s heart melted.

“That’s so sweet!” Sasha exclaimed, eyes watery. “I want an Ymir!”

“Well, you can’t have me!” Ymir laughed. “It’s not a big deal. The sponsorship I managed to land gave me a decent payout.” Ymir sheepishly replied, her cheeks a faint red

Y/N nudged her. “Look at you, being modest.”

Ymir waved her hand. “Shut up. How does this look?” She turned her phone to Y/N, showing a picture of Britney Spears clad in low waist jeans, a black tank top and sure enough, a yellow bandanna.

“That’s perfect.”

Ymir smirked, smug. “Just like me.”

“Y/N!” Sasha shouted. “Go back to the Porco thing!”

“Oh, yeah. What did Oinky want?” The girls turned to face Y/N, who shrank a bit back in her seat.

“That’s a new one,” Y/N chuckled. “I thought of one last night, too,” She paued for dramatic effect. “Porker!” She gasped out, giggling, hitting the table in a slight fit of laughter. Sasha and Ymir gave Y/N a blank stare, unamused at Y/N’s mediocre roast.

“Not funny, didn’t laugh.” Sasha spat.

“If your career was stand up you’d be living in a box.” Ymir deadpanned.

“Tough crowd,” Y/N sighed, wiping imaginary tears from her eyes. “But if you must know…” She purposely stalled a bit, knowing it would send an impatient, jittery Sasha over the edge and annoy Ymir even more, even if she pretended she was not interested in the relationship drama between Y/N and her disgraced ex.

“Just say it already!” Sasha begged.

“I…don’t know. I haven’t responded.” Y/N finally admitted, putting her head in her hands. “I just-“ Her words were muffled by her hands.

Ymir removed her hands from her face. “Your words, darling.” She scolded, voice oozing sarcasm.

“Ugh,” Y/N groaned. “I’m too pussy to respond. He just asked if we could talk. What could he possibly want? What if he wants the couch? It’s just too much.”

Sasha gave her a sympathetic gaze. “Just leave him on read! If he wants to talk so badly he’ll find a way to say what he needs to.”

“For once, I agree.” Ymir added.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Y/N stretched. “But it did keep me up at night wondering what he wanted.”

“Y/N, forget him! Historia’s party is soon, there’s no time to worry about ugly men!” Sasha stood up, rushing to put her bowl in the sink. “I got a lecture in a few, but you need to find your costume! We’re all going as Britney!” She said before disappearing into her room.

“Um, who’s gonna tell her we’re not all dressing as Britney?” Ymir inquired.

Y/N snorted. “Not I. I’m probably going as Suki from Fast and the Furious.”

“Niiceee,” Ymir fist pumped Y/N. “She was my sexual awakening.” Y/N choked on her muffin.

“Ymir, what’d we say about uncalled for horniness?” Y/N reprimanded. Ymir made her way to the coat rack, searching for her car keys in her leather jacket’s pocket.

“If I was gonna be chewed out for liking women I would’ve lived with my parents!” Ymir called out. “I gotta pick up Historia!”

“Will you be back?” Y/N shouted back.

“Get off my dick!” Ymir shut the door. Laughing to herself, Y/N picked up Ymir’s dish to place in the sink. She was, out of the three, the more tidier one. Ymir did the best cleaning, but she was selectively lazy.

“Bye, Y/N!” Sasha shouted before leaving in a rush. One thing Y/N had grown used to was the fairly chaotic mornings. She secretly hoped they would be like this for a long time.

Since Y/N had transferred, Ymir and Sasha had been the best roommates she could ask for. Yes, Ymir was snappy and Sasha was a bit ditzy, but it was the perfect combination and they were respectful. Y/N had transferred from Sina University purely for academic reasons, but she had not expected to fit in so well with the girls or their group of pre establish friends. She worried she would not fit in since they had already been so tight-knit, but found that wasn’t the case at all. They were open, accepting and loyal. Y/N couldn’t be happier where she was, and even though she wouldn’t admit it, she was grateful for how close they had all gotten in their short time together. Who knew randomly assigned rooming would provide her with friendship to last a lifetime?

Which is why every time she thought about Porco she kicked herself. How could she have let some… meathead ruin her freshmen year of college? She should have been having fun, interacting with Ymir and Sasha’s friends more, lived her own life. But no, she chose to become involved with a self absorbed fraternity guy of all people. Now she was semi-heartbroken, extremely humiliated, and about a year’s worth of time and effort short. She had allowed him to take advantage of her so much, that he felt he could contact her still after basically using her. The thought made her want to rip her hair out and scream.

Almost as if through divine intervention, her phone beeped with a notification.

What the actual hell? Y/N thought.

She froze for a second. What does she do? Respond? Ignore? Block?

After a few seconds of mental deliberation, Y/N finally decided. She was fed up with the lack of bravery she showed and decided to just end it once and for all. Typing out a response, she clicked send and decided to go to the mall for the retail therapy she was sure to need after whatever Porco said what he wanted to say. Turning the shower on, she braced herself for his response. What could Porco want? She couldn’t wrap her mind around it.

This better be good, Y/N thought.

taglist : @tsunderehokage @lagrimasdeglitter @snowyseungs @mukeovernetflix @bakugouswh0r3 @punicorn999 @deadlyaffairs @usernamehere91 @calumsfringe

a/n: woohoo!! long chapter. so to recap: i graduated!! i am finally free from the clutches of high school. i might do a face reveal :) bc i loved my grad dress. anywho, my fever cleared up, i have chapter 9 already completed (just need to revise + edit) and this is NOT proof read!! it’s 2 am guys i’m tired. but i hope you enjoyed this :) sorry for the weird cropping too. peace out

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sequinsmile-x · 3 years

Text

If Tomorrow Starts Without Me - Chapter 8

Rating: Mature

Words: 7,271

Trigger warning: descriptions of canon typical violence

Either read over on ao3, or below the cut!

Let me know what you think :)

August 1998

“Fifth times the charm.” Emily mumbles under her breath as they are let into the house by the real estate agent. She smiles when she feels Aaron squeeze her hand tighter, a silent request that she behave herself.

“What was that Mrs Hotchner?” The overly cheery estate agent asks.

“Oh, it’s very charming.” Emily answers, completely straight faced. The other woman seems to accept her answer and walks further into the living room.

“Good save.” Aaron whispers into his wife's ear, and she shushes him, hitting him lightly in the chest.

“I’ll give you two a chance to have a wander round yourself. If you have any questions I’m here.”

The house is perfect, something neither of them had been expecting given the disasters the past few viewings had been. They walk around upstairs, the master bedroom stealing both of their hearts almost instantly, and the room just down the hall that screamed it would be a perfect nursery making both of them smile.

“How long did you say you two had been married again?”

The real estate agent makes them both jump, and they turn to look at her, her fond smile fixed on their joint hands.

“Two years.” Aaron answers, unable to stop the way he smiled as he looked at his wife. There were days when he still couldn’t figure out how he had gotten so lucky, or why Emily had picked him to spend her life with. Sometimes he asked her, when they were laid in bed together, twisted in their sheets. His curiosity getting the better of him as he took in the incredible woman he got to call his wife.

Emily never answered him, not with what he was looking for anyway. She never gave a reason solid enough for his liking. Just a roll of her eyes, occasionally joined by the pinching of whatever skin her fingers were closest to. Then she’d mutter that she was the lucky one.

“Well, this would make the perfect nursery.” The real estate agent says, a wry smile on her face. “Are you two planning on any additions to the family?”

Emily would usually put on her political smile at such a personal question, and provide some kind of half answer to the woman who was selling them a house. But she can’t, her happiness overwhelming any usual need to play her cards close to her chest.

She looks up at her husband and smiles at him. “Yes, we are.”

They sign the deeds the next day. _________________

April 2000

Aaron finds her sat in the middle of the room they had intended to be a nursery. She’s sitting with her knees drawn up to her chest, an old shirt of his stretched over them as she wraps her arms around herself.

He silently sits next to her, the words from the doctor they had seen that day still reverberating around his head. The apology that told them everything they had needed to know. Everything that, on some level, they already knew.

It had taken him quite some time to get her home, her devastation in the parking lot outside the fertility clinic so raw he practically had to carry her back to their car. He had convinced her to shower when they got back, giving her the time alone he knew she craved.

Emily leans into him and presses her wet face into his shoulder. Aaron wraps her arms around her, pulling her into his arms.

“I knew something was wrong.” She murmurs into his shirt. “I knew it.” The tears start afresh, not that they had ever really stopped, and he rocks her gently.

Aaron shushes her, rubbing a hand up and down her back, pointless words of reassurance whispered into her hair. _________________

October 2002

“Ok, we’re here.” Aaron says as he pulls the car into their driveway, immediately turning around once it was parked, his seemingly ever-present smile widening at the sight of his wife and his newborn son in the backseat.

Emily smiles at Theo, gently touching his cheek. “Did you hear that, baby? We’re home.” She looks up at Aaron. “Would you mind getting him?”

“Of course not.” He gets out the car and gets to work on getting Theo’s carseat out of the back. By the time he is done Emily is still half sat in the car. “You ok, sweetheart? Do you need help?”

“No.” She grits out, wincing as she makes the final move to get out of the car. He’s by her side in an instant, one hand on her lower back and the other still holding the handle of the car seat. She rolls her eyes at him. “Aaron, my love, our very adorable son just took the best part of two days leaving my body very slowly. I’m going to be sore for a while.” She places a hand on his cheek and smiles at him. “Time is really going to drag if you react like that everytime I wince.”

Aaron opens his mouth to argue, but when she raises an eyebrow at him again he concedes, but keeps his hand on her lower back as he leads them into the house.

Emily makes a beeline for the couch, settling down into it’s cushions almost immediately. Her entire body hurt, and she didn’t think she had ever been this exhausted, but she was so happy she could burst.

She looks over to where her husband was standing, now holding Theo in his arms. “Aaron, bring me my baby.”

He walks over to her and sits next to her, gently handing their son over, before maneuvering her so their shoulders overlap, both of them looking down at Theo as he fights sleep.

“Is Jack staying at Jessica’s tonight?” She asks gently, eyes not moving from the baby.

“Yeah, she said she’ll bring him back tomorrow. Apparently he’s excited for more time with Theo.” Aaron answers, kissing her temple.

“That’s sweet.” She traces a finger over her son’s soft cheek, smiling as it twitches slightly in his sleep. Aaron shifts behind her, and it jolts her, making her wince as pain radiates through her body. She hears his sharp intake of breath, the way he opens his mouth to apologise. She removes the hand she’s had under Theo to cover her husband's mouth. “Don’t even think about it.” _________________

October 2003

Emily feels a tiny hand tugging at her shirt and readjusts Theo on her hip. She mindlessly presses a kiss to his head as she loads the washing machine. It never failed to amaze her how much laundry her one year old son could create.

Theo rests his head on her shoulder, the sleepiness he had been fighting in his refusal to go down for a nap finally winning out. “Mama.”

Her gaze snaps to him the second she hears his little voice, and he’s looking at her through tired eyes. “What did you just say?”

“Mama.” He repeats, as if he has said it a thousand times, as he buries his head further into her.

“Oh.” She abandons the laundry and wraps both arms around her son, pulling him tightly into her as she presses a kiss to his forehead. “You’ve never said that before.”

“Sweetheart, I just came to check you haven’t fallen in.” Aaron’s voice floats into the room, but his teasing tone fades when she turns and he sees the tears in her eyes. “Em, what’s wrong? What happened?”

She shakes her head, laughing at herself for the tears she cannot stop from coming. “Nothing’s wrong.” She clears her throat and bounces Theo on her hips slightly, getting his attention. “You going to show Daddy your new trick, huh?” Theo smiles up at her, his toothy grin as infectious as it was the first time he had done it. “Who’s this?” She points at herself and waits a beat, hoping he does it again.

“Mama.”

Aaron looks as delighted as she feels and pulls them both into a hug, kissing the top of Theo’s head before pressing a kiss to her lips.

When he pulls back she doesn’t miss the way his eyes are shining too. _________________

May 2004

He finds her standing watching the boys, hanging back from the entryway to the den so neither of them spot her. He walks up behind her, wraps his arm around her waist and she easily settles into him, resting her weight partially on him. He presses a kiss to her temple and looks over to where Jack and Theo are playing to see what she has been watching.

Jack was playing a video game, a racing one he was obsessed with. Theo was sitting next to him, the 18 month old holding a controller Aaron knew wasn’t plugged in, copying his brother intently like he had started doing lately, smashing buttons on a controller as if he knew what he was doing and was about to win the race.

The sight made him smile. The age difference between the two of them meant things were tricky sometimes, Theo was too young to really join in on anything that interested Jack, but they adored each other.

“He’s a good big brother.” Emily says, the sadness in her voice undeniable, and he knows she is thinking about the negative pregnancy tests in the trash in their ensuite bathroom. A failed round of IVF making the devastation on her face from years ago make it’s return, something he wishes he could fix for her but knows he never can.

“Come on, let's go sit.” He kisses her temple and slowly drags her out of the den, letting her give the boys one more fleeting look. He guides her to the living room, settles them both on the couch. “What are you thinking?”

She laughs, but it comes out more like a sob. “That I hate my stupid body.”

“Em.” He chastises, grabbing her hand and squeezing it. It was something she had said many times over the years. Throughout their attempts to have a baby, through the first failed attempt at IVF before Theo. Even in those last weeks of her pregnancy when Theo all but refused to be born. It always had the same result, him gently telling her off for speaking about herself that way. Reminding her she was more than her ability to have children. There were days when it didn’t help, and he knew this would be one of them.

“I don’t think I can do this anymore, Aaron.” She wipes a tear from her face only for it to be immediately replaced. “It’s too much. I can’t keep doing this.”

He pulls her into a hug and she gladly accepts it, grasping the back of his sweater tightly in her hands. He doesn’t know what to say, how to help her. “Whatever you want, sweetheart.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t give you more.”

He pulls back from her, moves his hands so they are cupping her cheeks. “Emily, I need you to listen to me ok?” She nods in response, tears falling as she does. “You have given me everything and more. If we had spent our whole lives just the two of us in this house that would have been all I needed, because I would have had you.” He runs his thumbs over her cheeks. “We have two amazing kids down the hall, and you’re an amazing mother to them. Watching you with them is a privilege, sweetheart. I hope you know that.”

She nods again, although he can tell she doesn’t quite believe him. He draws her back into his embrace and rocks her slightly as she cries it out, mourns a future she can no longer see.

He closes his eyes as he rests his cheek against the top of her head, images of a little girl with her eyes and attitude haunting him in a way he hadn’t expected. _________________

Aaron calls Sam’s phone. If Foyet had taken Sam’s car, he would have grabbed his cell too. He’d want Aaron to contact him, to be a part of this.

The phone is answered within seconds.

“Agent Smith.” Foyet’s voice comes through the phone. It’s a sound that has haunted Aaron for months. Blurred the lines between consciousness and his nightmares. Ever present like a ghost he just can’t shift.

“Foyet. You don’t have to involve them. This is between us.”

“Terrible news about the Hotchners wasn’t it.” Foyet says, and Aaron can hear the mocking in his voice. “Their poor children. I have them with me now. The youngest is so small. She won’t remember either of them.”

Aaron closes his eyes as Foyet ignores him, and doesn't acknowledge what he is saying. He can hear they are in a car, but he’s not on speaker. Foyet was still living out his fantasy, not wanting Jack to understand the truth yet, wanting to draw this out for Aaron as long as possible. “If you lay a hand on any of them, if anything happens to my children, I will destroy you.”

“Yeah, we are just arriving now. Jack, do you still have the keys for the gate?” There is a pause, he can’t hear the conversation in the car until Foyet turns his attention back to him. “Got to go now. I’ll check in later.”

The line goes dead. Aaron hits the table in frustration, a growl leaving his throat that doesn’t sound human. He places his palms firmly on the table, trying to ground himself as he lowers his head, not looking at the team.

The conference room is silent for a moment, the conversation between Aaron and Foyet laying heavily in the air.

“Why would Jack have keys for wherever they are?” JJ asks finally, swallowing against the lump in her throat.

Aaron looks up at her, the question triggering something in his brain. “He’s taken them to the house.” _________________

He sighs as Penelope confirms that Emily is no longer on the line, and all Aaron can do is hope that his wife forgives him for this, for whatever comes next.

“Dad?” Jack’s desperate voice comes through the phone. “What should I do? How...how do I fix this?”

“Jack.” Aaron says firmly. “I will be there soon. Where is Amelia?”

Jack blows out a breath, his panic evident. “Upstairs, sleeping.”

He sighs in relief. He’s close to their house, only a couple of streets away and he just needs to distract Foyet long enough so he can get there. “Good. That’s good. Tell Theo to go upstairs.”

Aaron knows that if it was different, if it was Emily that Foyet had managed to lure to the house he’d kill her now. Not give him the chance to save her, make their last interaction after all their time together be over a phone as people listened in. With the children, Foyet would want to make him feel like he had a chance, like he could have saved them. His final torment.

He would want to kill them with Aaron in the house. _________________

He doesn’t remember turning the ignition off in the car. He jumps out with his gun in hand as quickly as he can manage, not even closing the car door behind him. The front door is slightly open and he bursts in, the first thing he sees was Jack sitting on the couch, staring straight ahead, eyes purposely not focused on Foyet.

Jack looks at Aaron, relief flooding his face at the sight of his father. “Dad.”

“Well, isn't this touching?” Foyet sneers, taking a step closer to Jack. Aaron turns his focus to Foyet, training his gun on the man.

“Jack.” Aaron doesn’t stop looking at Foyet, his eyes and his gun firmly directed at him. “Go upstairs.”

“Dad-”

“Jack. Upstairs now.”

He takes his eyes off Foyet for a second when he hears Jack reach the top of the stairs, and that's when he takes his chance. Aaron’s gun is knocked out of his hands before he knows what's happened, a punch to his face briefly stunning him.

Aaron sees Foyet bolt for the stairs, his speed surprising. Aaron catches him as he gets to the top, smashing the other man's head into a framed piece of art on the wall before he can make it into Jack’s room. They struggle, both falling down the stairs in a heap. Aaron feels his head collide with the bottom step, and his ribs aching with the force of the fall.

They separate, meeting in the entrance of the dining room, circling each other like predators. Aaron can feel the red mist descending. He’s known from the beginning, the moment he saw Foyet reflected in a picture of Emily’s smile, that this was only ever going to end one way. With one of them dead.

He hears a noise upstairs. A bang and then the scuttling of feet, too small to be Jack. Meaning Theo was running around up there.

“Maybe I’ll let your precious Emily live.” Foyet taunts him, pulling a knife out of his pocket and flicking out the blade. “I’ll let her come back here to find you and your sons dead. She can raise your daughter who will have no memory of you except for the fact you failed. And your wife would hate you for it, for not protecting the family she always wanted.”

Aaron snaps. Months of torment, of letting his life be dominated by this man all culminating into one moment. Foyet knows so much about them, all of their secrets laid bare to him, and Aaron knows it will never be over until one of them is dead.

He’s sure he growls and he lunges for Foyet, knocking the knife out of his hand. He gets him on the floor and punches him in the face. Hard. His knuckles almost immediately split with the force of it. Foyet laughs at first, and it makes him angrier. His fist came down with more force.

Aaron keeps hitting Foyet long after he surrenders. Long after the gurgling sound he made as he choked on his own blood stopped.Images of his children and his wife flash through his head, punctuated by the sound of the bones in Foyet’s face breaking, his teeth smashing against his fist. Aaron can feel his knuckles cracking, his skin breaking against the jagged edges of Foyet’s face but he can’t stop. The need to get this monster out of their lives for good was too great, overwhelming his usual unflappable control.

Derek eventually pulls him off of him, Dave running in not far behind. “Hotch, he’s dead. You’ve got to stop.”

Aaron heaves in a breath and looks over at the man who had torn his family apart, who had haunted his every thought and nightmare since he attacked him in this very house.

Foyet is unrecognisable, his face distorted by blood and bone.

Aaron doesn’t spare him another glance before he turns to Derek. “The kids are upstairs.” _________________

He finds Jack in his bedroom. As soon as Aaron opens the door the teenager jumps, clearly expecting Foyet to walk in.

“Dad.” The relief in Jack’s voice is palpable, and he closes the gap between them, hugging his father tightly. “You’re hurt. Where is he? What happened?”

Aaron pulls back and places his hands on his son’s shoulders to take a good look at him. He had gotten slightly taller. Another growth spurt that Emily had teased was coming clearly behind him. He squeezes Jack’s shoulders. “He’s not a concern anymore.”

Jack frowns. “You mean he’s dead?” He swallows and tilts his head at his father. “You killed him?”

“Jack. We can talk about it later, ok? Let’s get Theo and Amelia.”

His son hesitates, but nods. They leave the room together, and Aaron walks past Theo’s room. “I told him to go to his room.” Jack says, pointing to the closed door.

Aaron turns back for a moment. “He’ll have gone where he feels safest.” He turns back and opens the door to his own bedroom.

Amelia is standing in her crib, crying, and for a moment he is taken aback by how big his daughter looks, how beautiful she is. A mini Emily through and through. “Hi, honey.” He breathes, reaching to hold her for the first time since the morning he dropped the kids at Elizabeth’s house all those months ago.

The baby shies away from him, crying as if he was a stranger and it hurts more than any of Foyet’s blows had. He hears a whimper coming from under the bed.

“Jack, take your sister outside. JJ and the team are there.”

Jack picks up Amelia, and Aaron pretends that watching his little girl curl into her brother's arms so easily didn’t hurt him. He tries not to think about everything he missed. Those precious months of his daughter's life were stolen from him.

Jack turns to leave the room, shushing his sister to try and calm her down.

“Don’t go into the dining room.” Aaron says firmly, his tone leaving no room for argument. Jack looks back and nods briefly before leaving.

Aaron kneels on the floor, ignoring the pain that seems to spark throughout his entire body as he does so, and leans down to look under Emily’s side of bed. Theo is there, curled up in a ball, shaking. He has a gash on his forehead, and as soon as he sees his father he starts to cry in earnest.

“Daddy?”

Aaron clears this throat, pushing down all the emotions that threaten to spill out of him so he can try and help his terrified son. “Hey buddy. How about you come from under there?”

Theo sniffs and shakes his head. “George said Mommy is dead.”

It feels like a punch in the gut, the devastation in his son’s voice makes his own tears flood his eyes. “He lied, Theo. She’s ok. She’ll be here soon.” Theo still looks unsure, wiping his face with the back of his hand, unmoving from his place under the bed. “Have I ever lied to you before?”

He seems to think about it for a second before shaking his head at his father and Theo slowly scoots out from under the bed, immediately throwing himself into Aaron’s arms and holds him as tightly as he can.

Aaron pulls back and runs his hand over his son’s head, finger tracing the edge of the cut on his forehead. “What happened, buddy?”

Theo sniffs, his fingers digging into his father’s bloodied shirt. “I heard loud noises and got scared. I fell over.” He tilts his head at Aaron, placing his hand on his cheek, over a cut that Aaron knew must be one of a dozen or so injuries. “What happened, Daddy?”

Aaron smiles at his son and somehow, despite his injuries, he manages to stand without letting go of him, placing him on his hip as he leaves the bedroom. “It doesn’t matter now. Let's get this cut on your head checked out.”

_________________

Theo is getting checked over by a paramedic when Aaron hears it. A car pulling up and a door slamming. An almost immediate argument afterwards as he hears his wife’s voice demanding to be let into the house.

“Jack, stay with your brother and sister.” Aaron says, already walking towards the front of the house away from the ambulance, ignoring the paramedics as they shout after him that he needs to be checked over.

He tries to shout for her, but she doesn’t seem to hear him or Derek as they both try and get her attention.

Aaron is only a few paces from Emily when he sees her knees give way, and he looks to the house, sees the body bag on the porch and in a second knows what she has assumed. He catches her, arms wrapping around her waist. She fights it, the sounds coming from her almost inhuman. She’s begging to be let go, devastation in every word. He turns her around, uses his strength against her to make her look at him.

Their eyes meet, for the first time in six months, and he sees the moment she realises who she is looking at.

“Aaron?”

It takes a second for her to move. She throws her arms around him, hitting him with a force that makes him grunt, the pain in his body from his showdown with Foyet increasing by the second. He holds her back just as tightly, squeezing her body into his as she cries against his neck.

“I thought…” Her voice fades off, torn open by sobs she has no control over. “Fuck, Aaron.”

“I know, sweetheart.” He presses a fierce kiss to the top of her head. He tries not to register that her hair smells different, that she’s thinner, weight she couldn’t afford to lose, gone with the stress of the last few months. He kisses the top of her head again, tries to give her all the love he had stored up in half a year. Eager to spill out onto her in a way he can feel she is desperately trying to return. “I love you.”

She cries harder, pulls away from him and kisses him roughly. She pulls away from him enough to speak. “I love you too.” She seems to take in his injuries for the first time, runs delicate fingers over the broken skin on his face. “Where are the kids?”

He leads her to them, never once letting her out of his grasp. As soon as Theo spots his mother he runs to her. Tears streaming down his face before he even reaches her. Emily bends down to his level, arms wrapping around him tightly.

“Oh my sweet boy.” She presses a kiss to the side of his head, not quite believing it had only been a handful of hours since she had last seen him. Emily frowns when her lips catch the edge of a bandage and she pulls back, frown deepening when she sees the stark white material on her son’s forehead. “What happened?”

“I hit my head.” He explains, like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

Emily stands, pulling Theo against her side and wrapping an arm around him before she looks up at her husband. “Is he ok?”

Aaron nods in response, a silent promise that he would tell her later on his face. Jack appears next to them, Ameilia on his hip, his patience with hanging back gone. He pulls Emily into a fierce hug which she gladly returns, Theo taking the opportunity to step into his father’s side.

Emily and Jack pull back from each other. “I’m so glad you’re ok.” Jack says, the relief clear on his face, shining in his eyes in the form of tears he hadn’t let fall.

“Right back at you, kid.” She replies, running a quick knuckle over his cheek when a tear does escape. Amelia choses that moment to cry out and reach for her mother. Emily gladly takes her into her arms, holding her daughter close. “Sweetheart, it's ok. We’re all ok.”

_________________

Aaron has to go to the hospital. He tries to argue against it, but the firm looks of the paramedic and Emily leave him with no choice. They manage to all pile into one Ambulance, refusing to be separated so soon after being reunited.

They sit waiting for a doctor to come see him, to assess the damage Foyet had caused this time around.

It's not lost on Emily that the last time she’d seen him was in this very hospital, him begging her to go and hide away for her safety and their childrens. He’d been on edge, the mix of pain and sedatives that failed to calm him down had made him less coherent than normal.

It had taken her weeks to fall asleep without the look of horror on his face haunting her, or the fear that Foyet had killed him after all. Her only reassurance that he was alive being the very fact she was apart from him, and not in their home.

He somehow looked worse now than he did when he had just been stabbed. He was thinner, paler than she’d remembered him to be. A sign that he hadn’t looked after himself like she had begged him too when she left.

His shirt was splattered with blood, a mixture of his own and of the man who had tried and failed to tear their family apart blending together.

“Agent Hotchner?”

They look up to see a nurse standing there, waiting to take him to the numerous scans they were told he would need to ensure he didn’t have any internal bleeding.

He nods at her as he stands up off of the gurney he was on, wincing as he does so. He kisses Emily’s forehead as he passes her, a promise that he will be back soon pressed into her skin.

Having him out of her sight immediately sets her nerves on edge. Her ribs feel tight, fear scratching up her spine that he would be snatched away from them again. Emily looks over to the other side of the cubicle and sees Jack with a sleeping Amelia on his lap, talking gently to Theo to keep him distracted.

“Jack, are you ok here with them for a moment?” She lifts her hand that is holding Aaron’s cell phone. “I’m going to make a call.”

“Of course.”

Emily doesn’t miss the nervous look on his face, the waver to his voice, and she wants to kill Foyet herself for doing this to them all. She walks past Jack on the way out, and passes a hand briefly through Amelia’s soft hair before squeezing Jack’s shoulder. “I won’t go far, I promise.”

She finds a relatively quiet hallway and blows out a breath as she pulls up the contact she was looking for, pressing the screen before she could change her mind. The call is answered almost immediately.

“Aaron, is everything ok?”

Emily feels more emotion hit her than she was expecting, and has to close her eyes to hold back the tears she can’t afford to shed yet. “Hi, Mother.”

“Emily?” _________________

Her mother promises to fly back to the US as soon as she can, insisting on seeing them all as soon as possible. It’s an odd conversation, but not the most awkward they’ve ever had. Emily isn’t sure how to explain anything, how to tell her parents that a man had been scraped off of their dining room floor only a few hours ago.

Elizabeth asks how she can help, and Emily off-handedly says at the end of the call, with the promise to call again tomorrow, that they needed somewhere to stay.

Elizabeth calls back less than 5 minutes later and tells Emily there is a hotel room booked for them as long as they need it. The owner was an old friend of her mothers who was more than happy to help once he knew all of the details.

Emily walks back to the cubicle they had been put in to find both Amelia and Theo asleep on the gurney under the watchful eye of their older brother.

“Hi.” She says gently so she doesn't startle him. Jack turns to look at her, a sad smile on his face.

“Hi, Emily.” He looks away from her again and back to his siblings.

She sits next to him, taking his hand as she does so. “You ok?”

“I’m so sorry, Emily.”

She frowns at that, the desolation in his voice, and she gives his hand a squeeze. “What for?”

“For believing him, for putting your kids in danger.”

Emily feels like she has had the breath knocked out of her.“Jack.” She breathes out. “You are my kid.” He looks at her then, eyes wide with tears pooling at his lashes. “I love you just the same as I love them, okay?”

He nods at that, the movement making tears falls down his face which he immediately wipes away. “Okay.”

She smiles at him, pulling him into the best hug she can considering they are sat in hard plastic chairs.

“I love you too, Emily.”

Emily presses a kiss to the side of his head. “I know you do, honey.” _________________

The hotel room is massive. It’s the penthouse suite, three bedrooms leading off of the main living area, a kitchen in the back corner, and a bathroom with a massive jacuzzi tub. As soon as she opens the door, a sleeping Amelia in her arms, Emily realises she should have expected it.

Her mother had never been one for being low key.

Emily sees a couple of bags on the couch, stuff she knows JJ had sent up for them. A couple of change of clothes for them all, some pyjamas and basic toiletries.

She puts Amelia down to sleep immediately, placing her in the crib that had been put in the master bedroom.

It doesn’t take long for the boys to go to bed. They chose to share a room despite there being enough for them to sleep separately for the first time in months, and something about it makes her smile. She tucks Theo in at his request, and sends Jack a grateful smile, knowing he is giving her and Aaron some time.

As Emily clicks the bedroom door behind her she sees her husband flex his fingers, the stiffness in the swollen joints obvious. “Come on.” She says gently, indicating he should sit on the couch. “We should ice your hand a little.”

He complies as she briefly leaves the room to grab a towel, before getting ice from the bucket and wrapping it up.

Aaron hisses as the cold hits his skin, and she gently apologises under her breath.

“Why did you do it?” Emily asks as she holds the ice over his torn up knuckles like the nurse had instructed. She thinks briefly about how gentle his hands had always been with her, with their children. It seemed incongruent to think that the same hands had just beaten a man to death in their dining room.

“Do what?”

She glares at him, pressing a little too harshly with the ice into his hand. “Serve yourself up to him like some kind of sacrificial lamb.”

“Better me than you or the kids.” He says gruffly, avoiding her unyielding gaze. “It’s me he wanted. If he had killed me…” His voice drifts off for a second at the sharp intake of breath she takes in at that. He looked up at her, but she wasn’t looking at him anymore. Her focus on the broken skin on his hands. “You and the kids would be ok eventually, you’ve been without me for a while anyway.”

Emily looks up at him sharply and abandons her task completely, putting the ice down on the nightstand. She cups his cheeks, thumb tracing over a cut high on his cheek bone. “We haven’t been ok, Aaron. At all. I got a taste of my life without you and I didn’t like it.” She clears her throat. “So, please don’t offer yourself up like bait to any more serial killers, ok?”

He doesn’t miss the crack to her voice or the way her fingers tremble on his face. He covers her hands with his and rests his forehead against hers. “Ok.” _________________

Aaron insists that she showers first. She tries to argue, says that he was the one who needed it more, but in the end she relents. She turns the water temperature up a little too high, lets it burn the day off of her skin.

Emily takes a deep breath and leans against the shower wall. The enormity of the day, and what she could have lost, hitting her all at one. She stands and sobs under the hot water beating down on her, different scenarios of how the day could have gone running through her mind in a way she knew would haunt her nightmares for weeks to come.

It didn’t feel real that they had all made it out, that she could start piecing her family back together.

She knew it wouldn’t be easy. The look on Aaron’s face when Amelia had cried when he tried to hold her upon their arrival at the hotel had fractured Emily’s heart. He had refused her offer of a joint shower, something he had never turned down before. Things felt fragile. Like the tiniest aftershock from the terror that had torn through their lives could tear them apart.

Once she has stopped crying, Emily showers quickly and wraps a bathrobe around herself as she leaves the bathroom. When she walks back into the bedroom she was sharing with Aaron he was nowhere to be found. She frowns and walks out into the main part of the suite only to find he’s not there either.

She begins to panic, wondering where he could possibly be, when the door the suite opens, her husband walking through with a CVS bag in his hand.

“Where the hell did you go?” She asks, voice harsher than she initially intended. She tightly wraps her arms around herself, trying desperately to hold the broken pieces of herself together. “You can’t just leave.”

“I thought I’d be back before you got out of the shower.” Aaron answers, shrugging his coat off at the door. He walks towards her and places a gentle hand on her arm. “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Emily tries to smile at him, but it doesn’t quite work. The tension from the day was still bubbling under her skin in a way that made her worried she’d eventually take it out on him. “What was so important at the pharmacy? I thought they gave you everything you needed at the hospital.”

Aaron opens the plastic bag and pulls out a pack of three peanut butter cups and presses it into her hand. “They didn’t have any of the giant ones left, so this will have to do.”

She looks at the chocolate in her hand and then up at her husband, confusion leaking out of her every pore. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Peanut Butter Cups. They didn’t have any giant ones.”

Confusion quickly turns into concern as she worries he may have a concussion after all, the practicalities of getting him back to the hospital when all of their children were asleep running through her head. “Aaron, honey.” She places a hand on his cheek. “You’re not making any sense.”

Aaron leads her over to the couch and sits them both down. He silently pulls his cellphone out, presses the series of buttons he has used countless times since he had sent her away. He watches his wife’s face as her own voice comes out of his phone.

“Hi honey, I just left Theo’s school, and I need to pop home before I take Amelia to the daycare. I thought I’d let you know as my boss that I’ll be late for work, because my husband apparently forgot the conversation we had only last night, and I’ve ended up having to do the school run.”

Emily looks at him as they listen to the message together, but his eyes are fixed on his cell phone, his grip on it tight. This daily routine that had kept him going during the time they were apart being observed for the first time.

“Which, by the way, led to a lovely conversation with my mother. I know baby, Daddy is an idiot.”

They both smile sadly at Amelia’s baby noises in the background, the fact she had grown so much since then more evident than ever.

“Anyway, you owe me big time. I’m thinking at least two orgasms and one of those giant peanut butter cups. I’ll see you later. Lo-.”

The voicemail cuts out and they sit in silence for a few seconds, Aaron avoiding her gaze, before she speaks. “I don’t remember leaving that.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to.” He clears his throat, finally looking at her. “I didn’t find it until after I got home from the hospital and got my phone back.”

Emily places her hand over his wrist and strokes the skin there before laying her head on his shoulder. “How many times did you listen to that?”

“Daily. Sometimes more than once.”

She sighs and turns her head enough to press a kiss into the material of his shirt. She isn’t sure what to say, how to make any of it better. Ultimately she knows she can’t, at least not yet. They would both need to be on more even footing to feel reassured they had each other back.

“Thank you for my peanut butter cups.”

He laughs like she hoped he would, but he winces quickly, the pain in his ribs sharp like a blade. She lifts her head to look at him, concern laced through her expression. Aaron smiles at her and presses a whisper of a kiss to her lips.

“You’re welcome sweetheart, but I may have to take a rain check on those orgasms for now.”

Emily laughs this time, and it catches in her chest on a sob. She rests her forehead against his. “I’ll hold you to that, Hotchner.” _________________

Aaron sends Emily to bed, her exhaustion clear on her face. He showers quickly, wanting nothing more than to climb into bed with his wife and try to sleep.

When he walks into the bedroom she is already asleep. Curled close to the middle of the bed, her hand placed on the pillow intended for him. He pulls back the covers on his side and grabs her hand as she settles next to her, intertwining their fingers in a way that he had missed over the 6 months they were apart.

She had always been a light sleeper, which was only made worse when their children came along, so she wakes, but keeps her eyes closed. She squeezes his hand before untangling hers from his and placing it on his neck, thumb pressed to his pulse point.

“Is this real?” She moves so she’s sharing his pillow, forehead pressed against his, as if in that moment she doesn’t care if it is real, or some kind of cruel dream. That she just wants to be close to him, even if it means she’d open her eyes and find herself alone in the apartment she’d lived in with their children. “You’re here?”

He smiles at how she sounds when she’s half asleep, voice thick and words running into one. He pulls her closer into his arms and she gladly follows, wrapping themselves around each other tightly, as if George Foyet could rise from the dead and tear them apart again. They have so much to talk about, so many things that need fixing before they can go back to any version of the life they had before he came home to find Foyet waiting for him, but it could all wait until morning.

“I’m right here, sweetheart.” He presses a kiss to her nose. “I’m right here.”

They both sleep fitfully. Nightmares tearing at the edges of their consciousness until they wake, finding solace in each other's arms.

#Hotchniss #Hotchniss fan fic #hotchniss fanfiction #aaron hotchner #emily prentiss #aaron hotchner x emily prentiss #WTB Universe #ITSWM

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