#also there's some slight misogyny in the mix there too like i do feel like her male characters are allowed more depth than the female ones

[darcyolsson]

actually how do you feel about the queer rep in tsc in general, b/c i feel like it's so good but also sometimes. Bad. like Anna was so messy imo, both as a nonbinary character and her relationship to Ari. but at the same time she writes so much queer rep for such a big and mainstream series.

i think the short answer is "overall very good, but not perfect, as can be expected from a cishet woman in her 40s"

long answer is yeah, it's a bit of a mixed bag sometimes, but generally good. i think she treats her queer and her cishet characters equally, without putting too much thought into certain sterotypes she wants to avoid, which does lead to a few questionable moments. (though she does avoid killing her queer characters like the plague, which, so true. keep that up)

i think a good example of this is how both magnus and matthew, two of the most prominent bisexual characters, are both known for being very flirtatious people, which is a negative sterotype i think most authors as dedicated to writing rep as cc would want to avoid. at the same time, there's also slutty characters who aren't bi (jace, isabelle, anna) and bi characters who aren't slutty (mark, kieran, helen). would it be better if she had avoided this stereotype altogether? i don't know!

same goes for the way cetain characters talk about magnus' femininity. though it's generally respected and generally admired, it's absolutely used as the butt of a joke like... all the time. would it be better if no one made fun of it, even though magnus' femininity is also explicity admired in-text by just as many people? i don't know, you tell me.

anna is......... a lot to unpack, isn't she. i can't really say how i feel about her gender identity since i'm not nonbinary myself, but i do think that if cc set out to write a genderqueer character she could have made that more explicit. i get that tlh being set in the 1900s leads to some complications, but i think a sensitivity reader may have helped her a bit here.

i do think her and ari's romance lacked a certain depth that other couples were given (and same goes for helen and aline, though they are obviously not main characters). i think this is mostly due to the way cc writes her male and female characters, or rather, their romances. it's a little hard to put into words but i feel like, in the end, her female characters are the ones who are regular people while the male characters often step into the sexy love interest role, ready to admire the Main Girl any opportunity he gets. that's not to say that most characters don't carry elements of both these roles sometimes, but it kind of leaves us with, like, Lesbian Sheep? does anyone get what the fuck i'm trying to say?

basically, when your romances depend on men being sexy dreamboats waiting for a girl to slowly fall in love with him, it's hard to write one without a man in there. the reason why ari and anna don't read as romantic is because they're both rational, three-dimensional people, whose main purpose in life is not getting the attention of some girl, when cc's romances almost always depend on the core dynamic being Regular Girl x Universally Admired Guy Who Would Kill Himself For Her If She Asked. (sizzy is a very notable exception to this, with izzy being the universally admired guy, while simon is the regular girl.)

basically, think her desire to write all her women as relatable, rational people for whom romance is not the single most important thing in their lives is preventing her from doing it. i'm very curious to see if twp will give us a better take on a lesbian romance but i don't count on it unfortunately!

[mypoisonedvine]

claimed || alpha!Andy Barber x reader

summary: an interrogation with an alpha is no place to have an unexpected heat.

word count: 2.7k

warnings: smut (dub con; the reader goes into heat and can’t think clearly enough to say no), a/b/o dynamics, loss of virginity, mentions of misogyny/discrimination against omegas, vague noncon and violence references, kinda housewife kink, possessiveness, breeding kink, praise, overstimulation, knotting, slight bondage (reader is handcuffed), slight pain kink, implied/subtle age gap, pregnancy mention at the end, kinda soft!dark andy but he's really not that dark

"This would be a lot easier for both of us if you started telling the truth."

You chewed your lip, looking away from the man across from you; it was impossible to keep eye contact when his gaze bore into you like that, when he gave you that stern, dominating look.

Andy Barber was so obviously an alpha, he was one of those types that just reeked of it. Figuratively— with the way he towered over you, his masculine body and strong features— but also literally considering his scent was filling the room now: pine, cinnamon, sage, and something a little bit sweet that made your mouth water.

It made sense for an alpha like him to have a high-powered, high-pressure career like this; he probably got a real kick out of squeezing information out of scared betas who couldn’t stand up to him.

And that was the role you were going to play now, because he was wrong: it would not be easier if you told the truth. If he knew what you really were, you’d be doomed.

You’d been hiding successfully as a beta for a long time by now, and you weren’t about to give it up now, even if it would likely have the charges against you dismissed. Omegas lived sheltered, oppressed lives; sought constantly by alphas, they had their pick of the finest since omegas were so rare, but until mated they were extremely vulnerable— and afterwards they were usually made to be subservient housewives, constantly bearing children as a consequence of their extreme fertility.

Maybe some omegas were okay with that, plenty probably loved that lifestyle since it was sort of the instinctual habit of an omega by nature, but not you. Never you. You wanted a life, a real life, your own life as more than an alpha’s mate. Thankfully you’d found the right mix of suppressants and perfumes to hide your scent, the right work schedule so you could always be home for your rare heats, and voila: to the rest of the world, you were a beta.

Being a beta meant being unnoticed, unacknowledged, never pursued and never courted. And that was exactly how you wanted it.

If Andy Barber knew that the man you’d stabbed was an alpha trying to force himself on you, there was a chance he would understand that it was self-defense and let you go. Then again, a lot of alphas seemed to think that being forced to mate was just par for the course for an omega; surely Andy wouldn’t be one of those types, as a man of the law, right?

“I can’t,” you finally answered.

“Whatever it is, you can tell me,” he assured, some of his anger shifting to a soothing tone. It really did calm you down; he must have been using his ‘alpha voice’ on you, and the fact that it worked should’ve been a red flag but you didn’t notice. “Let’s start from the beginning. You said you were at home but no one has confirmed your alibi. You said you didn’t know the victim but you obviously reacted when I showed you his picture. And, you said you weren’t there at the time of the murder but we found your DNA on the body.”

A little smile pulled at the corner of your lips, exactly not the reaction Andy had been expecting. “You’re lying,” you whispered.

He tensed up as you called his bluff. The DNA found at the scene was in the process of being analysed, sure, but it would be weeks until the results came back. “How can you be so sure?” he pressed.

“Because I.  Wasn’t. There,” you hissed, glaring back at him; he shook his head solemnly..

“No, that’s not it. I can tell when you’re lying, too, you know,” he warned.  “Tell me how you know I don’t have your DNA at the scene?”

“Because… because…” you breathed, blinking a few times as the room started to get warmer. Your head was spinning, your thighs clenched together— and when Andy reached out to rest his hand on yours and ask if you were alright, his touch sent it all into overdrive.

No, no, it wasn't your time yet. It shouldn't have come for a few more days, and you’d arranged to be bailed out tomorrow so you’d go into your cycle safely at home and not in jail. But now it was beginning and you had no way to stop it. Had the smell of an alpha really been enough to start your heat early?

Andy watched you start to pant and sweat with a furrowed brow, unsure what he was witnessing because he’d never had the opportunity to see it before. His ex-wife had been a beta, he'd never even met an omega before— they were quite rare after all.

But what he lacked in experience, he made up for in instinct; his body told him everything he needed to know about what he was seeing. “Omega,” he growled lowly, watching your whole body erupt into shivers at the timbre of his voice.

As far as alphas go, Andy was relatively level-headed, not as preoccupied with instinctual desires to dominate, to claim, to impregnate. A lot of alphas viewed mating with a beta as settling, although it was the much more likely outcome, statistically speaking. Andy, though, never really saw it that way, even knowing how much harder it would be to have a child with a beta. Their fertility was significantly weaker, both the males and the females, and Jacob was the product of years of trying; in all their marriage him and Laurie had never used any contraceptives and she only got pregnant the once.

But an omega? Especially a young one like you? He could knock you up right now, if he wanted. That power was intoxicating. It was exactly what he never knew he needed so badly.

“I don’t need the results of your DNA to know what you are,” he explained firmly. “I can’t believe I didn’t know before— you must have tried really hard to keep it a secret, little one. You must be so afraid of who you are… and who I am, for that matter.  It must scare you to imagine what I could do to you.”

You whimpered, the noise tugging his heart in conflicting directions; to comfort you, or to make you do it again.

“I’m not going to hurt you, if that’s what you think,” he assured. “Not if I can help it…”

Honestly, he wasn’t so sure he would be able to help it; he felt his own sanity slipping as he watched you writhe and cry, instinct overtaking logic in the both of you.

"Alpha, please," you shuddered, the title making his cock harden instantly, uncomfortably filling the trousers of his suit.

"You smell so good," he purred, taking his jacket off as he stood up to cool off a bit. "I can smell your heat, Omega. I bet everyone in the building can—” he glanced to the locked door— “but I'm the only one here."

"Need you," you whined, tugging on the handcuffs that kept you bound to the table.

"Stand up, bend over," he commanded, and he'd barely finished speaking when you'd already done it, bent at the hips with your forearms resting on the table as you waited for him. "Good girl."

He rolled up his sleeves and took his place behind you, caging his body in with yours, nuzzling into your neck to get a deep breath of your scent.

"Fuck, so sweet," he groaned. "Waited so long for this. To feel an Omega on my cock. Never thought it would really happen. Has an Alpha ever taken you before?"

"No, I never… no."

"Not just unclaimed but a virgin. Christ, am I dreaming?"

But he was too far gone to take any more time to appreciate his luck— he needed you now, and he was taking you all for himself.

If he wasn't so overcome with need he wouldn't have thought to tear your clothes off, but now he didn't even think to question the idea, shedding you of your clothes like they were made of paper until you were completely exposed to him, your wet core vulnerable while another wave of your sweet scent filled the room.

"Look at all this," he grinned, kneeling down to lap at your folds and taste your slick. Your eyes rolled back in your head, your channel craving to be filled. "All for me, Omega?"

"Yours, it's all yours…"

"Doesn't it feel good to be claimed, little one? To be owned?"

"S-so good," you agreed. "Want your knot, Alpha. Want your mark."

A growl echoed in his chest when you said that, and he craved nothing more than to bite your neck and bond you to him for life.

But, it would be better if he saved that for a little later.

He stood up again and gave your ass a quick slap— nothing too rough, just enough to make you yelp all cute and whiny— before grabbing your hips to pull them back into his. You gasped and pushed back onto him, shamelessly rubbing yourself against the thick outline of his cock.

"Gonna make a mess on me with all that slick, Omega," he growled, but it was by no means discouragement.

"Want it in me, please," you sobbed. Unable to resist your begging anymore, he hastily opened his belt and fly, sighing with relief when he wrapped his hand around his cock and pulled it out. Your whole body visibly quaked when he swiped the swollen head through your folds, coating himself in your plentiful arousal.

Without any further warning, he pushed his cock in with a loud moan, a cry tearing from your throat as he tore into your body. "Shh," he soothed as his fingers rubbed your spine, "that's my girl, that's my pretty Omega."

But pain wasn't really your issue; it hurt, yes, but what made you cry was that you were already on the edge, about to come from hardly anything. When he thrusted once, you lost it and your legs quivered as a new wave of slick started to dribble down them.

"Are you coming?" he asked darkly.

You could only nod, biting your lip to try to keep from moaning too loudly.

"Oh my god…" he groaned, amazed at how sensitive you were. Clearly he wasn't the only one realizing how powerful and incredible it could be when an alpha and omega mated.

He started to really pound into you then, each brutal thrust knocking you forward.

"Feels good when you come for me, Omega. Do it again."

You couldn't help yourself; his voice had complete control over your body, his words a command you were helpless to resist. With a broken whimper you came again, walls squeezing his cock in a weak and stuttered rhythm.

"It's better than they say it is. Even better than I imagined. So fucking good," he sighed. It felt so right, that was the thing. It felt like your body was made to be claimed and owned by him.

"Want your knot," you whined, "please, Alpha—"

"If I give you my knot, you're mine. My Omega. You will never allow another Alpha to touch you. You will not speak to another Alpha, look at another Alpha, even Betas are off-limits. When I bite you, you'll be bonded to me and become my wife, you'll never disobey me or leave me. When I knot you, you'll give me a child. Is all of that perfectly clear?"

It was everything you'd wanted to avoid just an hour ago. Now it was your greatest dream come true. "Yes, Alpha. Yours, Alpha."

"Want to be bred, Omega? Bred by your Alpha?"

"Please!" you sobbed.

"Then keep coming and I'll let you have it soon," he promised. "I'll give you all my come like you need so badly."

You whimpered as your walls seemed to try to suck him in deeper, gripping him so tight that it made his head spin. Orgasm after orgasm washed over you, too many and too numb to count, each part of you slowly stripped away and replaced with pure, all-consuming pleasure.

The base of his cock began to swell and you mewled proudly— that is, until, it just kept growing and you couldn't imagine taking anymore.

"P-pull it out," you begged instead.

"I told you that you would take my knot, was I not clear?"

But you hadn't realized how big it would get, how far it would stretch you— and it was still going. "It hurts, Alpha, please!"

"You'll get used to it, gonna keep it in you all night and give it to you every day so you'll have plenty of practice. Take my fucking knot while I come inside you and breed your cunt."

When his knot finally grew to its full potential, streams of hot come began to fill you, deeper than you had ever imagined possible. It was overwhelming, apparently unending, and one final orgasm rocked your body as you milked his cock for all it was worth.

He wrapped his arms around your body, holding you close and soothing you as you shivered and cried, his kisses trailing up your shoulder to your neck where, finally, he sunk his teeth into your skin and left his mark on you.

Your walls quivered around him at the feeling of being claimed, mated for life. In that moment you didn't notice or care that it was to a man you barely knew; he was your Alpha now, that was all that mattered.

He kissed and licked over the sensitive bitemark, whispering praises your ringing ears couldn't quite process yet.

At least you were getting bailed out a day early.

//

Andy kept his promise about exactly how owned you would be. For the first few months you didn't even leave the house, he was too busy filling you with his cock every day. Although he was happy to claim you anywhere he happened to find you— the shower where he hopped in randomly, the kitchen where he bent you over the counter, the living room where he pinned you onto the couch— his favorite place was the bed. It was rougher and more animalistic in the other places, but in bed he was possessive in an entirely different way.

"My wife, my sweet little wife," he whispered in your ear as he slowly thrust all the way into you, making your back arch until your chest pushed against his. "My Omega. All mine."

"Yours," you agreed.

The protectiveness increased tenfold when your scent changed during pregnancy, even more when you started showing; he was obsessed with the way you looked full of his baby.

As for you, omega life was better than you'd expected. At times you felt smothered by him, but simultaneously you felt worshipped and loved like you never thought you could deserve. He certainly spoiled you, though he expected your unwavering loyalty in return.

That part was easy, though. Love, not fear, kept you in check when other alphas had a wandering eye. They knew you were mated, the bitemark scar (which Andy never, ever let you cover) and ring (which Andy never, ever let you take off) were sign enough along with the change in your scent to them. Occasionally one would shoot his shot and get unilaterally rejected by you before getting his ass kicked by your husband. If only they knew what you'd done to the last alpha that tried to creep on you; how you met Andy in the first place.

In the end, maybe it wasn't so bad to fall into your instincts, your natural role in society. Andy sure made it pretty enjoyable with the way he brought you to the height of pleasure over and over every night. "Mine," he promised you in deep whispers, "from the moment I saw you."

[fmdrorinarchive]

━━━━━━  𝖆 𝖓𝖊𝖜 𝖈𝖍𝖆𝖑𝖑𝖊𝖓𝖌𝖊𝖗 𝖆𝖕𝖕𝖗𝖔𝖆𝖈𝖍𝖊𝖘… 💋 〈  Below the cut is an intro for Michelle Chae of Chroma // Please 𝖑𝖎𝖐𝖊 𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖘 𝖕𝖔𝖘𝖙 to plot, and thanks for reading !!  〉

𝖘𝖊𝖑𝖋-𝖎𝖓𝖙𝖗𝖔𝖉𝖚𝖈𝖙𝖎𝖔𝖓.

Hi again, friends !! This is Boone ( 19+ / MDT / HE & HIM ) and you may recognize me as the typist behind Vive’s maknae, Yoo Rioh. I’ve decided to bring in another muse! Like Rioh, Michelle’s just starting out in her career and I can’t wait to see her grow. ♡ To find out more, please read onwards !! I can’t wait until she gets to meet all of your muses !! Oh, here are a few trigger warnings to look out for if you continue to read: mentions of drug addiction and parental abandonment; mentions of slut-shaming and misogyny.

𝖖𝖚𝖎𝖈𝖐 𝖋𝖆𝖈𝖙𝖘.

MICHELLE RORIN CHAE,  b. 19990620

BORN & RAISED IN VALLEY GLEN, CA

FORMER COMPETITIVE FIGURE SKATER

BC ENT / CHROMA & CHROMA EMBER

SUB VOCALIST, SUB RAPPER, VISUAL

𝖋𝖚𝖗𝖙𝖍𝖊𝖗 𝖎𝖓𝖋𝖔.

RESEMBLES KIM MINJEONG ( WINTER ) OF ÆSPA

SHE STANDS AT A MODERATE 163 CM ( 5 FT, 3 IN )

CISGENDER FEMALE, USES SHE / HER PRONOUNS

GEMINI CANCER CUSP, YEAR OF EARTH RABBIT

HETEROFLEXIBLE, KINSEY SCALE #2, CURIOUS

𝖉𝖊𝖊𝖕 𝖉𝖎𝖛𝖊.

TRAJECTORY /  Michelle was born in Valley Glen, CA to David and Heesun Chae—the owners of a struggling restaurant in their neck of the woods. As a kid, she trained to become a figure skater, but when her father bailed on her and her mother because of a drug addiction, she couldn’t afford the expenses for coaching, etc. so she retired from it for now.  /  Instead of being able to truly enjoy her youth, she had to pick-up after school jobs in order to help her mom with bills, and for awhile, her only source of comfort was spent with guys that showed her affection. Her relationships with boys grossly gave her the title of a “whore” to her peers, so she sadly didn’t have many friends to lean on in high school.  /  Originally traveled to Korea to earn a nursing degree from SNU, but got scouted by BCE on her first day—prompting her to drop out of school to focus primarily on training. This enraged her mother as the plan was for her to become a nurse so they no longer had to worry about money.  /  After only a few months of training, she’s selected to debut as a member of Chroma. OTHER FACTS /  Not mentioned in her biography is the fact that she grew up in a fairly religious family. Mom and dad were raised Christian, so they raised their daughter the same. She was never into church, though. She always felt as though she was being judged harshly by the others in attendance. Hell, she even thought that of her mother quite often. Her style was never as pristine as her mom would’ve liked and no one understood her interests in the occult, in anime, in video games, and so forth. By the time she was eighteen, she stopped showing up to service altogether—which her mom didn’t like, but respected nevertheless.  /  She still likes to skate in her spare time... but she doesn’t really have any nowadays. You’d think that she’d be in the dance line due to her past in performance, but since she stopped skating, she’s lost a lot of her flexibility and power. She hopes to improve though!  /  She’s never had many close female friends, so she looks forward to hopefully bonding with her members as they grow closer. This is something she wants to change about herself a lot. INSPIRATION /  For Michelle, I pulled a lot of inspiration from a few different characters from television series, mainly Cassie Howard from Euphoria; Manuella “Manny” Santos from Degrassi: The Next Generation; Tessa Campanelli from Degrassi JH / High; and Britney Orton from We Are Who We Are, among others!

𝖕𝖊𝖗𝖘𝖔𝖓𝖆𝖑𝖎𝖙𝖞.

01.  On the surface, Michelle’s reasonably pleasant to be around. She has a deep interest in people, especially those she’s close to, so if you’re a friend of her’s, she genuinely wants to know all about you and deeply cares about how you’re feeling / doing. Some might perceive this high level of intrigue as romantic, and she’s... not ever really going to confirm or deny those types of feelings. She’s a huuuge believer in love and doesn’t want to end up like her parents, but also has no idea what she’s doing when it comes down to it. She didn’t have the best example to look up to, so you know. 02.  Michelle’s really talkative, and she’s witty, and she knows how to charm the pants off of most people, and while that’s loud and present in her character, she also has many faults. For one, her emotions are really strong and her mood is easily affected by others and events that occur in day-to-day life, so she has a tendency of being moody. That, and she also isn’t the best “rule follower” either. Does she care that there’s a dating ban in place for she and Chroma? Absolutely not. Did she experiment with drugs and alcohol in high school when they were forbidden to her? Yes. She’s not the best at making decisions, but she believes that taking risks shape better people... even if that belief’s a little skewed. 03.  Some people say that she might be a little too “sweet” for her own good sometimes and she’s prone to getting her heart stomped on, but she’s not all that innocent. While she’s a huge believer in love, she’s not exactly good at it. She enters in and out of relationships all the time, and she loves the honeymoon phase, but whenever it starts to get too “real,” she gets nervous and bails. Abandonment issues FTW? A very strong possibility. 04.  She’s also empathic to a fault on occasion. It’s easy for her to pick up on the emotions of others and it’s hard for her not to carry them on her shoulders. She’s had a difficult time learning that boundary for herself, and well, at this point, she doesn’t even realize that it’s a thing. Mother taught her how to be kind and nurturing towards loved ones, but she can take it to a degree that isn’t healthy for anyone—especially if love / romance is involved. 05.  Her chattiness can sometimes land her in trouble, but that’s because she has a hard time filtering what she says. Her mind runs a mile a minute and her speaking patterns are similar, so sadly, she can’t control what comes out of her mouth sometimes... pray for her.

𝖍𝖊𝖆𝖉-𝖈𝖆𝖓𝖔𝖓𝖘.

01.  If I were to make any sort of “claim” on what I imagine her voice sounding like, it’d be a lot like J from STAYC, maybe with a little mix of fromis_9′s Seoyeon. There’s a delicate husk there, and it’s a little lower than the others, but it’s extremely recognizable and unique. That is her biggest asset as a singer and rapper. She’s not had enough time to truly make drastic improvements to either skill given her short stint as a trainee, but she’s working really hard to get better and doesn’t want to be seen as just a pretty face forever. 02.  Dance-wise, she’s actually pretty strong—just nowhere near as trained as Chroma’s dance line. Due to her extensive background in figure skating ( and a little bit of ballet ), she’s got a really natural gracefulness to all of her moves; a fluidity that allows for strong body rolls, etc. Additionally, she focuses on clarity and sharpness, angles, as that’s what she’s most familiar with. Michelle also has great control of her hip-area and often adds variations to moves using her hips. If I were to select a reference, I’d say Oh My Girl’s Arin and TWICE’s Mina. Some of her faults are that her movements are often too light and soft, so whenever power is needed, she lacks strength there. She also has a tendency of making choreography look a little “sensual” without necessarily intending to. 03.  Loooves when people call her Mish or Chelle/Shell. Honestly, she adores nicknames—both giving and receiving them. She’s also a heavy user of pet names in conversation, but tries her best to stop if people are uncomfortable with it. 04.  Michelle’s typically not afraid of making her affections known, even early on. She’s the type that’ll definitely hit on you if she thinks you’re handsome / attractive, and goes with the flow if the person responds positively. If she gets really cozy with you, she can come off as clingy in the beginning, but that typically subsides with time. That’s applicable to both her friendships and her romantic relationships. 05.  Her public image is similar to that of Alice in Wonderland and Snow White—beauties with fair skin and wide eyes; imaginative and curious; trapped in purity and sweetness; soft, feminine, and delicate—but with a slight “edge” because of her rapping and quick wit. It’s hard for her to keep up with it all the time—especially when she’s a bit different personally—and she’s barely starting in her career. She hopes it evolves over time. 06.  She’s decided to go by her Korean name as an idol because it made the most sense, to be honest. Though, a few other stage names tossed around were: Chelle, Wooah, Hayan, Rozy, and Baekseol. In the end, she’s happy she’s just Rorin or Michelle to everyone.

𝖕𝖑𝖔𝖙-𝖑𝖎𝖓𝖊𝖘.

This section will be updated when her plots page is complete. Please look forward to it !! I’m getting it done as fast as I can. In the meantime, I’m happy to brainstorm and look over your muses’ plots pages too !! ♡

[blkmxrvel]

Haven’t Forgotten My Way Home (15) - [CONVERTED]

Pairing: Kara Zor-El x Female!Reader

Summary: In  the D/s society of National City, men and women abandoned by their   Dom/mes or otherwise deemed unfit for life “outside” end up at the Mount   Overland House for Orphaned Submissives. It is here that Kara Zor-El   finds Y/N Hastings, broken and fearful from mistreatment at the hands of   her former Dom. Can Kara coax Y/N back into the world that once so   terrified her, and show her the true meaning of care and submission?

Warnings: Domestic Violence (Flashbacks, Mentions and Descriptions), Misogyny, Domination/Submission.

A/N: once again i’ve fallen in love with this story and read it officially now 6 times. I’ve converted the rest of this series so, get read guys! we will be on a loving kara danvers spree until the new year lmao! enjoy. also, in this chapter and this chapter only, kara is short. i totally forgot about this part and there literally nothing i could do to fix it without having to change the story and, this isn’t my work so. 

Kara parked her car in the lot, and practically skipped up the walk towards Nia’s little home behind Mount Overland House. Ever since she’d come home from the seminar that morning she’d felt like she’d been walking on air. Then again, that may have started the night before, when Y/N called and asked her out on a date.

Kara had always thought she’d be the one to ask Y/N out on a date. It would be romantic, possibly in the park. They’d walk together around the pond, hand in hand, not saying anything but simply being together. And from her research Kara would know that the sun would set at exactly 5:39 p.m., and she’d watch the sky for the first blush of pink to appear before she would turn to Y/N with a soft smile on her face and ask the perfect question, at the perfect moment.

“Y/N Hastings, will you go out with me?”

Not that she’d been thinking about it, or planning it, of course.

And ordinarily if anyone had beaten her to the punch and disrupted her carefully not-planned romantic gesture, she would be upset. But the quiet, nervous and halting way in which Y/N had asked her, just before they’d said good night…

“Miss Kara, I w-was wondering if you’d m-maybe like to go out on a-a date with me…”

That trailing off, that soft uncertainty, of being so unsure of herself and what she thought Kara might feel... Kara had found herself saying yes, yes, absolutely, of course, without even a second thought to her own plans and sense of melodrama. Y/N had cast the line in her own way and Kara was hooked. Not only was she hooked but she was sunk, because Y/N had sounded so relieved, so shyly proud of herself when she’d refused to tell Kara where they were going, only saying that she’d fixed everything already and Kara only needed to wear something casual but comfortable, and would she please mind picking Y/N up?

So there was a present wrapped in white and tied with a green ribbon waiting in the car, and Kara was wearing a pair of checkered shorts under a black top, with knee-high black boots to match, her heart was fluttering wildly as she knocked on the door to pick up her date.

But it was Nia who answered the door, not Y/N, and she grinned at Kara. “Before I let you in, I must ask you, what are your intentions with my houseguest?”

Kara raised an eyebrow, and Nia laughed, throwing the door open wider. “Come on in, Miss Zor-El, Y/N’s been running around the house all morning a nervous wreck waiting for you.”

“I have not.”

Kara turned and the heart that had been fluttering skipped a beat. It amazed her how in even jeans and a shirt Y/N could look beautiful, but this time she’d done her hair up instead of letting it fall on her shoulders, and somehow she looked even more breathtaking than usual. She smiled at Kara, a light blush on her cheeks as Kara simply couldn’t stop staring.

“Do you like it?”

“Oh, I adore it,” Kara said. She moved forward and wrapped her arms around Y/N in a hug.

“I’m so glad you’re back. I missed you, Miss Kara.”

She’d missed her too; it had surprised Kara just how much. She was used to being alone, at her home and in the hotels for seminars, and it hadn’t ever bothered her, not much at least. She had her albums and Theo, her TV shows and Alex and Maggie, her dads. But then Y/N had come into her life and made a home in a little piece of Kara’s heart, and now the house seemed too big, the hotels dirty and lonely, and the albums of love and longing had taken on even more meaning.

It wasn’t that during the few days she was gone she thought about Y/N constantly; she had a job to do and it was easy enough for Kara to get distracted even without Y/N in the picture. But if she didn’t actively think about her except when calling, texting, or buying her gift, Y/N was still ever-present in the back of her mind, a quiet safety or security that was almost like the bracelet Kara wore around her wrist.

Twice during the seminar when she was supposed to be paying attention, Kara had found herself playing with it, and wondering what it would be like to switch it to the other side.

Kara let Y/N go and smiled at her. “I missed you too. Don’t you want to tell me where we’re going?”

Y/N pretended to consider it, and Kara nearly rolled her eyes; this one had a bit of the brat in her, apparently. “Nope,” Y/N finally said, sounding merry. “You’ll find out soon enough, Miss Kara. But we should go so we’re not late.”

“Late for what?”

“Nice try.”

“Have her home by midnight!” Nia called after them, and Kara shook her head, but couldn’t help but laugh when Y/N did.

Kara held open the passenger door for Y/N then made her way around to the driver’s side, grinning a little when she climbed in and saw Y/N eyeing the present. “That’s for after our date,” she said, and this time did roll her eyes when Y/N pouted. “Good things come to those who wait, Y/N.”

“I think I’ve waited long enough…”

Kara glanced over, and moved her right hand off the steering wheel to rest on Y/N’s knee. It was sobering, really, how quickly a happy moment could be overshadowed by him, like a spectre that they couldn’t stop from hanging over them. She briefly wondered if the evil that was James Hudson would always be there, or if they’d ever make it past him.

“But you know,” Y/N added, her own hand coming to rest on top of Kara’s, “Some things are worth waiting a lifetime for.”

“When did you get so romantic, Y/N Hastings?” Kara teased, relief flooding her.

Y/N smiled. “Right around the time I met you, I think,” she said. “Please turn left here, Miss Kara.”

It was cute, the way she framed her requests; Kara could tell by the slight way Y/N’s hand clutched the car door that she wasn’t fully comfortable still, with asking things or giving “orders.” But there was also a determined look on her face, as if she was going over the directions in her head, focused on getting them to wherever they were going successfully.  And that only made Kara more eager to know exactly where they were going.

“So you had a good time at the park the other day with Alex and Maggie?” Kara asked, keeping her eyes on the road while remaining hyper-aware of Y/N’s fingers lightly curling around the hand on her knee.

“I did, yes, Miss Kara,” Y/N nodded. “I think… I don’t know, I- she-“

Kara glanced at her. “Y/N?”

“Alex’s a good Dominant,” Y/N blurted suddenly, then chewed her lower lip. “She… she’s really good. Turn right here.”

This was the same route Kara took when… hmm. The excitement grew a little bit stronger within her; could it be that Y/N had… But she pulled her thoughts away from their date and back to the words the woman next to her had spoken. She’d said it with so much wonder, such surprise, and it pained Kara to think of just how much Y/N expected every Dominant she came into contact with to be like her former one. But it was worse when the person was male, because it was a man who had inflicted every inch of pain on her body and every flicker of hurt into her heart. For Y/N to start realizing that maybe, just maybe not every male Dominant was a bad one… Kara felt that peculiar warm feeling again, and she turned her hand over, locking her fingers with Y/N.

“She really loves Maggie.”

“She really does,” Kara agreed. She paused, and then added, “It’s amazing how beautiful our lives can be when we have someone to really love us.”

Y/N nodded with a small smile, and then her eyes lit up. “We’re here, Miss Kara.”

Kara’s mouth dropped open as the theater came into view. The marquee for Wicked seemed to shine like diamonds in the afternoon sun, and if she hadn’t been driving she would’ve clapped her hands like a child in her excitement. “Wicked?” she exclaimed. “We’re going to see Wicked?”

Y/N’s smile grew as she watched Kara in amusement. “Yes. Alex helped me decide and I ordered the tickets…”

“But how did you know I love the theater?”

“You… put the numbers in my phone.”

“Well, yes, but I wasn’t hinting or anything.”

Y/N raised an eyebrow at Kara.

Kara shivered a little. “… Are you sure you’re not Dominant, because that eyebrow.”

“Do you know where to park?” Y/N asked, laughing a little.

“Of course I do,” Kara said with a huff, still scarcely able to believe that Y/N had been able to pull all of it off. Mixed in with the excitement was no small amount of pride, that Y/N had orchestrated the whole thing without much help. Still, she’d have to give Alex a high-five later; she always knew exactly what Kara liked even if she pretended not to.

Kara parked on the upper deck and turned the car off, moving to exit but stopped, because Y/N was rooted to her seat and now clinging to her hand. Kara’s brow furrowed in confusion before it cleared with the realization. Y/N may have organized their date, ordered the tickets and gotten them here successfully, but the parking deck was full. Which meant a full theater, which meant a lot of people, which meant… terrified Y/N. Kara shut the car door and turned towards her, holding her hand gently.

“You didn’t have to do this,” she said quietly. “We could have had a picnic somewhere, or played board games at Nia’s. This is a lot for you to take on, Y/N.”

“I-I know,” Y/N stuttered, her voice shaky, “But I wanted to. You like the theater and I… I like you. You’ve been so good to me, Miss Kara; I wanted to do something good for you. But I’m scared.”

“And that’s okay.” Kara sat in the car, silent for a moment, before finally saying, “How about this. We’ll go in and have a look around, and if we decide we want to stay we can. I’ll be right there with you, and I’m not going to be upset if you can’t do it. All right?”

“You promise you won’t be mad, Miss Kara?”

Kara squeezed Y/N’s hand. “I could never get mad at you for that. And like I said, I’ll be right there with you. I know you can do it.”

Y/N hesitated, and then nodded. “Okay. I really do want to see it. From the description it sounds as if Elphaba isn’t evil, only misunderstood.”

“Keep talking like that and I might fall in love with you.”

“Did you know that the Clock of the Time Dragon’s wingspan is the same as a Cessna 172?”

“Stop it.”

Y/N giggled and fell into step with Kara as they walked towards the front of the theater. They paused at the ticket counter, and Y/N swallowed hard, taking a deep breath.

“Two tickets, reserved under Y/N Hastings.”

A second went by as the man pulled up their account, then handed the tickets to them with a smile. Kara beamed at Y/N, who grinned back.

Once at the door, Kara stopped and looked at Y/N. She held out her hand, saying nothing, only smiling.

Y/N took her hand, and they walked into the theater together.

Instantly Kara felt at home. The theater was swamped, but these were her people, her family in addition to her dads and Alex and Maggie. It was where she felt whole, complete. It was where she knew she belonged. She’d spent her life preparing for a life in New York, to be a Broadway star bolstered by her talent and the love of the submissive that would be waiting for her after every show. She’d been accepted to one of the premier drama schools just prior to graduating from National City Academy, and Kara Zor-El knew her star was on the rise.

And then her dad had gotten sick.

Randy Zor-El’s illness hadn’t been fatal, and both Kara and her other father had thanked God about that, but it was enough to keep him out of work for almost a year, and since David Zor-El couldn’t quit his job to care for his husband, the task had fallen on Kara. Well, she’d actually volunteered, refusing to even entertain the idea of some strange nurse coming in to care for her father. As a spoiled only child doted on by her daddies, Kara had felt it only fair – and necessary – that she stay behind and temporarily postpone her dreams of going to New York.

Her father hadn’t been sick again ever since his illness had faded away, but Kara’s New York dreams had been postponed ever since. Alex had helped find her a job within the government, and now Kara’s life was wrapped around SETS.

So she craved every chance she got to go to the theater in National City, or occasionally to a show in Columbus. For a few short hours it was a chance to immerse herself back in that life, to imagine what if. What if she was in New York? What if she was just finishing up a show, and was opening the door to her dressing room to find Y/N there, kneeling in wait for her?

She felt Y/N’s hand tighten in hers and Kara came back to the present, pulling the woman slightly closer to her. “You’re all right,” she reassured gently. “No one’s going to hurt you, I wouldn’t let them.” Y/N nodded at her, her face pinched and white as her eyes darted here and there, looking at everyone and everything before finally settling on one of the souvenir counters.

“Do you want to go look?” Kara asked. “You might find something you like.”

Y/N gasped, her eyes widening. “I forgot to bring money,” she said, sounding heartbroken.

“Hey, that’s all right,” Kara soothed, hating the way Y/N’s eyes were tearing up. “I can buy my own souvenirs, and I tell you what, if you want anything, I can get it and you can pay me back, okay?”

Y/N chewed her lip, seeming uncertain, but she nodded. Kara walked them over to the souvenir counter, her own eyes wide with green and pink, the Grimmerie, snow globes, the Emerald City glasses…

The Emerald City glasses. Y/N was staring at them, an excited grin on her face, and Kara fought back a giggle. Out of all the things, the sunglasses were what captured her interest? She poked Y/N’s arm lightly.

“Do you want those?”

“No, that’s all right, I forgot to bring money.”

Y/N rolled her eyes as Kara turned to the woman behind the counter and said “One pair Emerald City glasses, please, thank you.”

“You look adorable,” Kara said, once she’d made Y/N try them on. “My little Ozian.”

Y/N took the glasses off and looked at Kara, her gaze searching. “Your little Ozian?”

“Yes, well. Ahem.” Kara cleared her throat, feeling awkward, but was saved by the gentle tone sounding through the lobby that told them it was nearly show time. “We should find our seats!”

It didn’t take them long, because Y/N had reserved them fourth row seats, and Kara was absolutely not ashamed that she squealed when she discovered this. Still, her happiness was short-lived (and she’d forever hate that pun, thank you very much) when she sat down and realized that the person immediately in front of her would prevent, by virtue of his ample height, any good view of the stage. She sighed and rested her elbow on the arm of the chair, leaning her chin on her hand.

“Miss Kara?” Y/N said, glancing at her. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing,” Kara said, and then waved her other hand in the general direction of the man in front of her. “I’ll just have a nice muscle strain after this is over from attempting to see the stage.” She offered Y/N a small smile, hoping that she wasn’t sounding ungrateful. “I’m perfectly used to it, being shorter does have its disadvantages.”

Y/N nodded, looking from Kara to the stage to the man, then back at Kara again. “You could um… no, never mind, it’s stupid.”

“I could what?”

“Sit on my lap? T-that way you could see, and no one is in front if me so I’d be able to see just fine too, and… but it’s a dumb idea.”

It was cute, the way Y/N sat nervously with her hands in her lap, a few loose tendrils of hair falling into her face and making her look even more gorgeous than she already did, if that was possible, Kara thought. But she also thought that this wasn’t the way things were done. Dominants weren’t supposed to sit in the laps of their submissives – but wait, Y/N wasn’t even hers. So maybe… she glanced at the back of the head of the person in front of her, then over at Y/N.

In seconds she had moved over and was sitting in Y/N’s lap.

“O-oh,” Y/N said, startled, slowly moving her hands up so that her arms wrapped around Kara’s waist, holding loosely. “Are you… comfortable, Miss Kara?”

“Very,” Kara said, taking a deep breath and relaxing so that she leaned back against Y/N. She felt Y/N’s chin come to rest on her shoulder, and Kara smiled, once again feeling warm and happy. She opened her mouth to speak when a sarcastic voice at her left stopped her.

“Don’t you need to get into costume, munchkin?”

Kara tensed in spite of herself, in spite of being so used to these jokes. She’d been called worse, during her time at the Academy; if it hadn’t been for Alex she wouldn’t have had any friends at all, really. She knew they all envied her talent, her ability to make jaws drop and eyes water with a simple note sung with power at the end of a song. Her classmates showed their jealousy with insults about her height or whatever else they could think of, and despite her best efforts to not let it bother her, some days were easier than others.

“Sir, I think you might want to be quiet so that you’re not asked to leave.”

Kara craned her neck around to look at Y/N in shock. Y/N’s eyes were dark with anger as she regarded the man that had spoken rudely to Kara.

“Oh, really, and why is that?” he sneered.

“Because,” Y/N said calmly, “As you can see, there are children here, so no dicks are allowed.”

Kara nearly choked as the man turned almost purple with rage, before finally turning around and focusing his gaze back on the screen. She began to shake with the effort of trying not to laugh out loud, and shivered when she heard Y/N’s voice in her ear, low and uneven.

“Have I displeased you, my lady?”

She should warn Y/N against calling her that. She shouldn’t be thinking about Y/N as the knight who had just defended her honor. But Kara was helpless to do anything except shake her head no, because Y/N sounded so nervous and worried, so she said with a little giggle, “You’ve been around Maggie too long.”

“Maybe,” Y/N said, “But you need protecting, too.”

“And you’ll be the one to do that?”

There was a pause of what seemed to be an eternity, before Y/N at last said, her voice down to a whisper, “I want to be.”

The fanfare of No One Mourns the Wicked saved Kara from once again disappearing too far into her own thoughts, and the excited way in which Y/N clutched her only made her own excitement grow stronger. Kara had seen the show many times, and knew all the lines by heart, especially Elphaba’s, since it had long been her dream to someday play her on the stage, and so she was able to concentrate more on Y/N’s reactions. She was happy that Y/N laughed in the right places, applauded after all the songs, and it seemed to Kara that it was natural for the woman who held her, that Kara herself wasn’t the only who might be right at home in a theater.

“Do you need to leave?” Kara asked as Y/N breathlessly dragged her off to the restroom at intermission, words spilling out of her about how wonderful the actresses were, how fantastic Defying Gravity had been.

Y/N stared at her as if she’d grown three heads, and Kara laughed, squeezing the girl to her. Their faces were inches apart, and it would be so easy to just…

But no. Not in a bathroom, for goodness’ sake.

They stood on their feet in raucous applause through the curtain call, and for once in her life Kara made the decision to forego autographs at the stage door. She had more important things to attend to, she thought, even if for a split second she wondered if she’d gone insane; what could be more important than stagedooring?

But one look at Y/N’s face as Kara drove them towards the coffee shop was enough for her to know she’d made the right decision. She took the wrapped package into the shop with them, laughing and ignoring Y/N’s pouts until they’d both ordered – and Y/N had gotten chocolate chip cookies again – and sat at a table far in the back away from prying eyes, before sliding the present across to Y/N.

“For me?” Y/N said, taking off the Emerald City glasses and resting them next to her coffee cup.

Kara shook her head. “For you, little brat.” She smiled. “Open it, whenever you’re ready.”

But Y/N simply stared at the package, running the tips of her fingers over the paper and the ribbon, seemingly lost in thought. Kara was beginning to know that faraway look well, the expression that told her once again Y/N had slipped into the past, to a memory she might not have wanted to revisit.

She reached out and captured Y/N’s hand with hers. “Are you all right?” she asked.

Y/N smiled at her slightly. “I just… haven’t had a present in a long time, Miss Kara.”

“Not since…”

“He let me sleep on the bed once, for Christmas. At the foot. For a few hours anyway; he said he wouldn’t have enough room to be comfortable if I was there all night.”

Maybe she could hire Maggie as a hit man… Kara squeezed Y/N’s hand again. “Well now you don’t have to worry about that, and maybe your friends will help make up for that lack of presents.”

“Friends,” Y/N echoed, giving Kara a strange look.

“Open it, Y/N.”

She did, slowly and reverently, and Kara realized with a grin that Y/N was going to be one of those people, who opened every present as slowly as possible, while making sure not to tear any of the paper or ribbons, because they wanted to save them. It gave her a little thrill, though, thinking that maybe Y/N would want to save the paper and ribbon in a scrapbook. A reminder of the date they’d first shared.

Kara watched in nervous anticipation as Y/N lifted out the sketchbook. Her eyes fell on the front cover, her mouth opening in a little “o” as she read the inscription.

A bird does not sing because she has the answers. She sings because she has a song.

Y/N said nothing as she opened the book and began to leaf through the empty pages, and Kara began to worry that she didn’t like it. Maybe she should have gone with a necklace. Or a charm. But all of those… those were gifts a Mistress bought for her girl, and even though things were probably going a lot faster than they needed to with Y/N, Kara knew they weren’t ready for that yet, if they would ever be.

But then Y/N looked at her, and the tears fell down her cheeks as her lips trembled into a smile. “It’s g-gorgeous, Miss Kara, I—“ She stopped then, unable to speak.

Kara let out the breath she’d been holding. “Really?” she said. “You liked it? I-I just know you love to draw and, well, you’ve got paper and pencils but I wanted you to have something that you could use to keep all of your sketches together. And I know you like birds, so when I found a book with the quote on it, I thought maybe…”

“I love it. Thank you, thank you so much.”

They sat together in the coffee shop talking until the sun had slipped under the horizon. Kara told Y/N about her father’s illness, about how she’d been meant to go to New York but hadn’t, and how much she loved the theater.

“Do you ever want to go?”

“To New York?” Y/N nodded, and Kara shrugged. “Sometimes I do wonder if I am past my time for that,” she answered honestly.

“I don’t think someone like you could ever be past time to do what you want, Miss Kara. Maybe you can sing for me sometime, and let me decide that.”

Kara blushed. “Maybe I will.”

They drove back to NIa’s house in silence, both women happy and warm in the glow of first date bliss. Kara was bound to chivalry as usual and insisted on walking Y/N to the door, both because it’s just what was done, and also because she knew Y/N was tired, and she didn’t want her steps to falter on the way. So she walked beside Y/N, watching for any sign of a stumble, then stood underneath the lamplight when they reached Nia’s door. The house was dark and Kara was relieved; she’d half-expected Nia to be watching for them out the window.

“I had a wonderful time,” she said to Y/N. “I’m really, very proud of you for doing all of this. For doing it for me. Thank you so much.”

In the dim light Kara could see Y/N turn pink as Kara hugged her. “It was for me too,” Y/N confessed. “I just want… more time with you, Miss Kara.”

Kara pulled back then, no longer hugging Y/N but still holding close to her. Their faces were inches apart again…

Kara leaned up on her toes and gently, softly pressed her lips to Y/N’s. Once again she pulled back and waited, her eyes searching Y/N’s.

Y/N’s arms wrapped around her as her lips met Kara’s in another kiss. These kisses weren’t like the first one Kara had shared with Y/N; frenzied desperation had been replaced with gentleness, and with Y/N’s hands splayed across her back and Kara’s hands held safely, securely around Y/N’s waist, Kara knew that wrong or not, too soon or not…

As somewhere in the dark she could hear a bird sing, as they kissed over and over in the lamplight, Kara knew there would definitely be more time with Y/N Hastings.

[sometimesrosy]

Kim is a known Bellamy hater, she whitewashed Bellamy and said he had white privilege 4 years ago. He keeps downgrading Bellamy's importance in Clarke's life which was evident in both 6x07 and 6x12. Also in her interview about 6x07 too. She made that Octavia vs. Clarke in Clarke's mindspace about everyone else but Bellamy. She said she couldn't face Jasper and L.xa. LMAO. Do you even know who you are standing for at this point? You ignore all the edivence when you feel like it. It's annoying.

“known bellamy hater” isn’t really a fact. That is an interpretation that you have and I don’t share it.

She whitewashed bellamy yes. That IS a fact. That was ignorance as far as I can tell. She did not KNOW nor did she understand the complicated history of his background or what it means to be mixed race.  

However, as a mixed race person who has been whitewashed by plenty of people in my life-- by possibly you for all I know, since there’s a large faction of THIS fandom who does so, and since you’re sending a nasty anon, you’re clearly not one of the people who likes me-- I understand that ignorance about a race/ethnicity you do not understand is not a fatal personality flaw. It could be something you need to learn. Or maybe you’re just a racist, it’s hard to know from one incident. We are ALL living with this racist society and we ALL have to confront the racist misconceptions in our minds.

That is what put Kim on my watch list for questionable behavior. I have not seen her do anything like that again. In four years, she’s never said anything racist like that again as far as I know. If she does, I will add that to my list. It has not been erased from my awareness of who she is. 

Sometimes people are racist out of ignorance. Sometimes people are assholes. Sometimes people are all sorts of things. That doesn’t mean they can’t change or they don’t have other redeeming qualities. If you go around calling people evil every time they do something stupid, offensive, or jerkish, you’ll end up thinking the entire world is evil. I can’t live like that.

Everything you say after the whitewashing point, which is a fair point, and has gone into my consideration, and made me wary of her, is all bad interpretation and wrong.

Kim continues to write Clarke as the hero. She is Clarke centric. This, to me, is not a sin. In fact, I like her Clarke stories. She writes the hero as the hero. This is a good thing. 

She may not focus on Bellamy as much as she focuses on Clarke, but that’s not wrong. She loves Clarke. She does not erase Bellamy. She does not hate Bellamy. She does not hate or erase Bellarke. Neither does she erase CL, which is good. She shouldn’t. She did love CL, and there’s nothing wrong with that, either. What happened during the CL years with the writers and fandom, I’ve put behind me. They seemed to have learned something from that.

That you think putting Clarke at the center of the narrative and telling stories about her and other characters besides Bellamy is some sort of slight to Bellamy and evidence of hating or diminishing his characters tells me that your perspective is that Bellamy is more important than Clarke, and Clarke’s main importance is as part of a ship or as a love interest, and I have to say, I find that perspective to be misogynistic. A female character who is placed above an equally strong male character and made the hero is “wrong.” It is only right if she is the love interest and focused on the male hero. 

That is internalized misogyny, my darling.

I cannot support your interpretation of Kim’s part in the story, although I agree with you about the social media stuff. I just choose to let four years ago stay four years ago since there have been no repeat offenses.

I would like you to notice that I have not ignored any of your points, and I had explanations for them all at a moments notice. It is because I had already considered your points, and brought them into my understanding of the situation. And I brought up points that you didn’t. That is not ignoring evidence, that is taking it into consideration and then coming up with a different conclusion that disagrees with yours. That is why I think what I do about Kim. She messed up, but has not since then, and I am okay with the way she writes The 100 with Clarke at the center instead of Bellamy. Because Clarke is the hero. And I am tired of the misogyny that continuously erases strong women, both in fiction and in life.

This white washing issue with Kim is actually a personal issue for me, since I am mixed race like Bob, and have been dealing with the racism leveled at mixed race people since 1975. I do not have a knee jerk reaction to this issue. I consider all the information before I judge. I have been having serious discussions about this topic since, gosh, IDK, the 90s at least. And that’s many years after I’ve started having the thoughts. So what I’m saying here is that I have not ignored these things, I have taken them all in and have bigger and more comprehensive thoughts about them than you do, because I think about more things than “whitewashing=racism=bad=evil person.” Whitewashing is bad and racist, but it doesn’t equal an evil person. Since all of us exist in a racist society, we ALL have those racist ideas, and we need to confront them on a regular basis. We can say the same for misogyny, and you personally should consider how you’ve internalized misogyny in your thoughts about female heroes and their roles in the narrative.

And I find it very ironic that the same fandom who attacks Kim for whitewashing bob and bellamy is the fandom that white washed and attacked ME when I talked about being mixed race, latinx, economically disadvantaged, an advocate of teenagers at risk, or really anything they didn’t agree with.

So please understand that what Kim has done, as far as I know, is nowhere near as severe as what the fandom has done to ME, in regards to whitewashing. They will support Bob’s mixed race heritage against attacks and whitewashing and then turn around and erase mine and whitewash me.

So pardon me for thinking you’re all a bunch of hypocrites. :)

[thesinglesjukebox]

BILLIE EILISH - BURY A FRIEND

[7.76]

Why you always play that song so loud? Oh.

Ian Mathers: Over a series of songs and videos, Eilish has practically offered a survey of fears and bad feelings: spiders, isolation, drowning, physical assault, mental illness, poison, other people as monsters, the self as a monster, etc. and here she leans harder than ever into the horror tropes, both sonically and visually. The sampled dentist drill, lyrics equally evoking the monster under the bed and sleep paralysis, the haunted house/nursery rhyme lilt of the verses, the bravado that at least partially stems from her narrative persona already feeling bad enough about herself that you sure as hell can't touch her, and of course the line that recurs over and over: "I wanna end me." It's the sort of thing you can imagine parents freaking out over, and even possibly the (yes, yes, very young) Eilish looking back years from now and thinking the better of. But, much as plenty of pop music conjures up outsized romantic sentiments that listeners gravitate towards despite not actually wanting to follow through with them in a literal sense, it also feels like the kind of darkness that I know many people who don't struggle with suicidal ideation still identify with in the context of a pop song. I'm not actually arguing for its total harmlessness so much as admitting that I don't think total harmlessness is necessary or even desirable in pop, maybe especially when it is from someone as young and who seems to be as tapped into a new vocabulary (sonic and gestural as much as linguistic) as Eilish is so far. The line and the song make me uneasy even as I love it and feel seen by it, as opposed to (say) Juice WRLD's bullshit which doesn't to me feel like it has any redeeming element at all. Eilish and "Bury a Friend," meanwhile, don't need a redeeming element unless you have a problem with the rich history of darkness in pop (as opposed to the rich history of misogyny in pop). Not for nothing does my friend Jess Burke describe her as "Fiona Apple for a Blumhouse future" and of all the paths to go down, that honestly feels like a pretty great one right now. [9]

Tobi Tella: Billie Eilish is one of the first true Gen Z pop stars, and as someone only a year or so older than her I'm impressed with how fresh her music feels on the pop landscape. The sense of dread that appears in most of her music is in full force here, and while I have found some of her music to be a little "2edgy4me," this works by fully leaning into it. It's unlike anything anyone else is making right now. [7]

Alfred Soto: If "Bury a Friend" is a gesture, an experiment -- as if Billie Eilish said, "Let me show how minimalist my music can be, and put in cool noises too" -- then its failure to be more than this is my failure. She's been tuneful before, which means she knows what she's doing. [6]

Jonathan Bradley: "Bury a Friend" sounds like the product of a musical landscape where anything can be heard on demand and none of it comes with context. Billie Eilish's artless murmur suggests that her roots lie in the DIY aesthetics of bedroom folk, but while her music can be wispy and personal in that mode, it wanders into other realms in which it seems not to realize it doesn't belong. This song is punctuated by producer Crooks intoning Eilish's name like a mixtape DJ's drop, while the shrieks that tear into the dark low-end pulse seem torn from Yeezus-era Kanye. There's even some Fiona Apple in the stops and starts punctuating her phrasing. Like Lorde before her, Eilish is adept at playing up the adolescent's attraction to darkness, and the haunted house atmosphere and lyrics about stapled tongues and glass-cut feet settle into a delicious murk. Perhaps most unsettling and most unexpectedly novel about it all is that Eilish doesn't sound like a paralysed gothic heroine. She sounds like one of the monsters. [8]

Katie Gill: Insert that Marge Simpson 'kids, could you lighten up a little?' reaction image here. It only makes sense that the hot new pop sensation is the musical distillation of nihilistic memes and the lolz I'm so depressed joke culture that's permeated the popular consciousness. To her credit, Eilish has her finger perfectly poised on the zeitgeist. Unfortunately, we've been dealing with the zeitgeist for at LEAST two years now. Such ironic detachment and 'I want to end me lmao' already feels out of date -- the fact that the song seems tailor-made to score an American Horror Story scene only dates it even more (those backing screams were a baaad choice). The main thing this does is make me wish that Eilish leaned in more towards her lighter fare. [5]

Vikram Joseph: I've been a Billie Eilish sceptic, but "Bury A Friend" is, if not quite Damascene, certainly revelatory. It feels deliciously, obscenely engrossing; that minimalist pulse, the mocking, nursery-rhyme motif ("What do you want from me? Why don't you run from me?"), those swift, decisive industrial gut-punches, the breathtaking turns of pace and time-signature tightrope-play. Most of all, it's fun, especially when her vocal affectations come off like a demonic sonic negative of Lorde. It feels like her entire aesthetic coming together, a camp horror-flick dark-pop queen finally wearing the crown she's been threatening to unveil for a while now. [8]

William John: At 28 I feel far too old to be pontificating about Billie Eilish, but what I will say is that if their new formula for chart success is to mine the aesthetic of Róisín Murphy circa Ruby Blue, then I'm ready to submit to our new zillennial overlords. [7]

Iris Xie: I've been hearing Billie Eilish everywhere I go, and her music always vibrates with a moody, dark warmth while I move through thrift stores, coffee shops, and sidewalks. Reclaiming whisper-singing from Selena Gomez is a fantastic move, especially when paired with that slight rhythmic drumming, sudden starts and stops, and that little omnipresent danger that I miss so much from f(x)'s Red Light. Our times are escalating faster to some kind of destruction, but in the air, there is exhaustion and energy of both a defiant joy and a quiet numbness. "Bury a Friend," and her album overall embodies that energy in spades. [7]

Will Rivitz: Jump scares in horror movies suck; they're cheap, calculated cash-ins on human predilection to react badly whenever something threatening pops out from the underbrush. Much more difficult to pull off, and much more impressive in its execution and creativity when it succeeds, is the slow-burn thrill. When a ghoulish, uncertain threat is buried ever so imperceptibly below the surface, it roils adrenaline in the most painfully pleasant of ways, as we fail to put our finger on anything about what's about to destroy us except that, make no mistake, it will indeed destroy us. "Bury a Friend" nails that most sublime skin-crawl. The lowing bass and teeth-scraping industrial synths roll around the aural triggers that make every hair on a back stand up with the cold impersonality of coins circling a hyperbolic funnel forever, the end always implied but never achieved. Appropriate, too, since Billie Eilish's main triumph is capturing the slow-burn existential dread of living as a young person in a world thoroughly ruined by those who won't live to see out the ramifications of their present actions. Obliquely, that's "Bury a Friend," a nightmarish Borges y yo resurrection, endlessly Genius-ready especially given the original story now has a Genius annotation itself. (The internet continues to be bizarre.) Instrumentally and lyrically, it's a warped and terrifying celebration of a muddling and destruction of identity supercharged by the less savory bits of our constant interconnectedness; it is, in other words, the best summary of Billie Eilish she could possibly present to us. Eilish affirms our base fears that things are fucked, we're all irrevocably in shambles, and there's absolutely jack shit we can do about it; we might as well learn to celebrate where we're at, since there's nothing else awaiting us. [9]

Alex Clifton: I can't remember the last time I felt this astonished by a song, nor can I remember hearing anything this sublime. I mean this in the gothic sense -- something beautiful and terrifying and subsiding where you've just got to stand and soak it all in. "Bury a Friend" is every nightmare and melodramatic thought I had as a teenager set to music, the suspicion that I was a monster who was better off dead and everyone knew. It felt so plainly written on my skin. But it's not just dark and monstrous. Billie feels scared and sad on the chorus: when we all fall asleep, where do we go? Something in her voice is so vulnerable that I feel cut open myself just hearing it. I fear some older people may hear "Bury a Friend" and write it off as emo teenage poetry, but it's so much more than that. It's the honesty of Lorde's first album mixed in with the sharp crunch of being a teen in 2019, living in a world constantly on fire with questionable prospects for a future. I would expect nothing less from a teenager to be honest, especially one as talented as Eilish. I just wish I had had the courage to be this dark and messy when I was her age. [9]

Will Adams: So much of the Billie Eilish discourse concerns her aesthetic and how it relates to Gen Z, but it often misses a key part of her appeal: how electrifying her music sounds. Tactile, confronting and claustrophobic, Billie and her producer brother Finneas create music that tightens its grip and refuses to let go, and "Bury a Friend" is as good an example as any. Alternately screeching, skittering and booming with sub bass (like "Black Skinhead" crawling with spiders), it conjures up a nightmare you can't look away from. [9]

Katherine St Asaph: A game that is both fun and great for making yourself acutely aware of how fast the grave is yanking you down is asking yourself, and being honest: if you were a teen today, who would you stan? Would you be an Ariana Grande Teen? A Blueface Teen? A Billie Eilish Teen? The depressing truth is that I probably would've been a Lana Del Rey Teen, but I could see myself reluctantly liking this for its weird drama, its dramatic weirdness. I'm convinced people confused about why Billie's dark music appeals to teens have never themselves been teens, the time of life where you endless-repeat Nirvana (ask Dave Grohl) or Sarah Brightman's cover of "Gloomy Sunday" or "Bury a Friend" and often make it out regardless. The flavor of darkness here is more than a little Tim Burton, in the twisted-nursery-rhyme melody, but there's also more than a little "Black Skinhead" and "Night of the Dancing Flame," and how many teen sensations can you conjure those references up for? [9]

Stephen Eisermann: Billie Eilish, especially here, is the exact representation of what would happen if Lorde pulled a Jack Skellington and entered the portal in the trees to find herself in Halloween Town. The same intriguing vocal tics, off-beat metaphors, and bold production choices -- just decorated with horror-tinged jack-o-lanterns and ghost sheets. In other words, I love Billie and I love this song. [8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: "Bury a Friend" is less a song and more an intentionally jarring collection of phrases -- even Eilish's individual lines sound cut off, as if they've been reassembled from a previously coherent whole. Not every piece works -- Crooks' vocal additions are unnecessary and some of Eilish's longer phrasings in the bridge are too stylized. Moreover, the picture that this collage is supposed to be forming never gets cleared up. And yet there's almost an illicit thrill to listening to a pop song that sounds like this, in all of its chaotic terror and joy. [6]

Edward Okulicz: In truth, this song feels like it runs out of gas, but its first 30 seconds are incredibly arresting. It's not that the rest of it is bad, I mean there's a bit where she sounds exactly like Róisín Murphy and that's never bad. Over the course of a bunch of singles, Eilish has used lots of existing musical tropes in an interesting way and built up a style that's unmistakeably her -- maybe I'm just disappointed she's taken it to complete fruition in half a minute and maybe there's nowhere else for her to go but to do a full-on macabre Glitterbeat thing. She's got fans that'll go with her to any place she chooses. [8]

Taylor Alatorre: I'm inclined to dislike most of the well-manicured teenage dramascapes that make up Billie Eilish's discography so far. Maybe it's the narcissism of generational differences -- sure, I was moody and disaffected as a 17-year-old, but I wasn't this kind of moody and disaffected. You're doing anhedonia all wrong, kids! Yet somehow, "Bury a Friend" is able to dislodge me from this self-consciousness by brandishing its own self-consciousness as a weapon and waging a merry war on itself. It's a staging ground for a bunch of one-off experiments and on-the-nose signifiers and 2spooky vocal tics and vintage 2013 alt-pop tropes, all of which seem to communicate: "This is a song that I wrote, and I can debase it however I want." It's squeamish about its own existence yet sure of its purpose, with a simple driving beat that yields to miscellany while warding off the specters of musical theater. Its high point is an archly written low point: the sneeringly drawn out "wowww." in response to a blunt confession of suicidality. If it turns out that reducing the stigma doesn't always lead to better outcomes, at least we got some good banter out of it. [8]

Joshua Copperman: Huh, I guess we are seeing the beauty at the end of culture. And it's suicidal, it's offensive, it's ugly. Then it's fake-deep, and it's edgy, because Heaven forbid we legitimize the concerns of teenagers. The common thing is supposed to be how, as a teenager, everything feels like it matters, but today's teens are growing up in a political moment when nothing feels like it does, if it ever will again. Okay, that's a bit much -- there's a chance that actual teens aren't like this, and this is what people whose brains have been poisoned by Twitter pundits think teenagers must be like. It can't be a huge coincidence, though, that "I wanna end me," "why do you care for me?" and "I'm too expensive!!!" all wound up in a Top 20 hit by a 17-year-old. Like any good writer, Eilish sublimates those fears into a horror movie song from the point of view of the monster under her bed, a pure Tumblr or r/writingprompts move. But with this many Spotify plays, with this much success, it's hard to shake the feeling that along with the stellar "idontwannnabeyouanymore," Eilish is actually onto something with The Youths. Finneas O'Connor's bonkers production, with dentist drills and the 12/8 "Black Skinhead" bounce, certainly helps this stand out. (Rob Kinelski, too, has crafted a mix more interesting than anything his more successful contemporaries like Serban Ghenea have done lately.) Underneath the grimdarkness, what really separates Eilish is the sense of humor; the nursery rhyme bridge seemed a bit obvious, but after hearing songs like "Bad Guy," Eilish sounds completely aware of the tropes she is using. I have no doubt this blurb will age badly if her music gets worse after this, but who cares when there's not much aging left to do? Lead us into the apocalypse, Billie and Finneas! [9]

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