#also you know those tragic characters who are genre aware

[simmyfrobby]

― “Landscape,” Louise Glück, Averno.

Hockey Poetry Post 7/?

(Photo credit: Chris Tanouye, Mitchell Leff, Len Redkoles, Jonathan Kozub, Bruce Bennett, Tim Nwachukwu)

[animasola86]

(MODERN AU) In Your Care

Pairing: Sebastian Sallow x f!mc x m!oc Genre: Angst/Smut/Drama // Words: 6.9k // [READ ON AO3]

Synopsis: Living in the same foster home, Nebbia and Sebastian are supposed to stay away from each other, but because they are both troubled teenagers with troubled pasts, they simply can't. But then the past comes back to haunt them, threatening to destroy everything.

WARNINGS: NSFW! MDNI! Explicit sexual content (oral, vaginal)! Psychological trauma! Sexual abuse/domestic violence! Forbidden foster siblings relations! Horny and damaged teenagers! (Original characters!)

Last warning and notes: This is set in modern times. There is no magic, just plain old life itself, in its worst form imaginable (there's also horny teenagers and love, but the darker themes might hit a lot of trigger points, so please be aware of that!). In this chapter there's an introduction to the setting and a very long smut scene. Enjoy with caution! (If you don't care about the plot, the smut is marked with 🔴!)

// - CHAPTER 2 →

1

Nebbia stirred in her sleep, inhaling sharply, her eyelids fluttering as another nightmare made her toss and turn. And she would, but something kept her from moving around too much: two arms wrapped tightly around her body.

About two months ago she would have stiffened and panicked, but tonight was not the first time she found herself in his embrace. Turning her head slightly, she opened her eyes and tried to see him in the dark. He had his face buried in the nape of her neck, breathing calmly and deeply, his body molded to the shape of hers, his groin pressed firmly against her rear, and she smiled when she felt exactly how happy he was to be this close to her.

At least he had peaceful dreams, finally. He certainly needed them.

To be fair, she did too, as did all the other people sleeping in the many rooms along the long hallway of the big house. They were all connected under one roof, sharing the same fate: being orphans, having been forgotten by the world, left behind, sent away, tossed around like a leaf in a storm.

Nebbia had been four when her Italian immigrant parents had died in a tragic factory accident in New York, and she had been handed around a lot after that, from foster home to foster home, all over the US, until she had been found by two very ambitious people who had made it their life goal to 'collect' orphans from all over the world.

She didn't know how they did it or why, but by coming to this house her life had changed to the better for sure. They all had their own rooms, bathroom and closet included, they had set mealtimes, and there was always food in the house. They even got a little money every month to buy things for themselves, or the opportunity to work odd jobs to earn some more.

There were, however, certain conditions and rules to follow, but she rather admired the strict pattern they had to live by. Which included a long list of chores, and each day they would check what they had to do today, and despite being a bunch of kids and teenagers and young adults, all of them stuck to the plan without hesitation.

All it took was a story told in hushed tones about how someone had been punished for disobedience, and the details would vary and get worse the longer it got handed around until it had become a common fear of all the residents to never break any rules to not end up like the poor soul who had done it before them. (Who might have never existed in the first place, but nobody knew for sure by now.)

Nebbia wasn't particularly afraid of those rules (or the consequences if broken), she actually liked the structure, it gave her a certain peace of mind.

And despite there being so many of them, at least a dozen orphans, it didn't feel like an orphanage, more like a family. Because they were paired into different groups, it didn't get too overwhelming during mealtimes or their shared free-time.

There were the kids, aged between seven and twelve, then the teenagers, where she found a place, being a few weeks away from turning seventeen, and the young adults, yet the oldest was only 21. They all had to look after each other, so the older inhabitants of the house took care of the younger ones.

Now where were the 'parents' you might wonder. Well, they provided shelter and food, sent the kids to school and college, gave them allowance, but most of them had only ever seen the people, who had taken them in, once. They were always somewhere, anywhere but the house. Traveling mostly, she suspected. To be honest, she didn't even care.

Her life was good the way it was now, and she never felt the need to talk to any authority figure anyway. It worked out, didn't it? Despite the curious circumstances, she lived a normal teenager's life, going to school, worrying about grades, coming home to do her chores, doing homework, helping others with theirs, doing her part.

Come night she found herself in her own room, yet she was seldom completely alone. Being the only girl in the upper age group, she had quickly adjusted to living door to door with three other boys, and again, it usually worked out. Looking back at the years before, she was really grateful it did work out, because that hadn't always been the case.

But she wouldn't look back, there was no reason to lament the past when her present was much more enjoyable. That was if the boys next to her room would play by the rules. They did have a curfew, but until then they were allowed anything... and anything ranged from yelling at computer screens, blasting their music till the walls shook, or doing whatever other noisy activity that would sometimes drive her insane.

There was Paul, the muscle man, another orphaned immigrant kid who was scooped up by their 'parents' some time ago, with his thick German accent, his short blond hair and piercing blue eyes. He was the oldest of them, 21, and the provider of all things the others might be too young to get. He didn't talk much, but he might have been the noisiest of them all as he would indulge in lifting weights and doing other fitness related things she had absolutely no clue about, meaning he would usually grunt and groan loudly in his room, yet sometimes she suspected him to do something completely different.

He lived in the room right across from hers, so she didn't really care much about what he was doing as they didn't share a wall. On her left, however, lived Ryan, 19-year-old Canadian who lost his parents a few years ago when he was sixteen. He had joined the 'family' at the same time as her, two years ago, and they had a rather unique friendship because of that. He was tall, with short black hair and the darkest eyes she had ever seen, and most of the time he was hunched over like a shrimp in his chair and stared at his computer, playing games, watching porn and doing who knows what.

He didn't believe in the invention of headphones, so she would always hear what he was up to, and as he had no shame whatsoever (and luckily the younger kids' rooms were on the other side of the house, out of earshot), he would blast those moany films for all of them to hear, if he didn't damage their ears with his extensive collection of the loudest music she had ever heard. Despite it all, he was fun to be around, and she found herself talking to him for hours sometimes.

And then there was Sebastian, on the right of her room, the quiet British kid, seventeen years old, tall, with messy brown locks and warm brown eyes and a face full of freckles. He had come to them last, only about three months ago or so, and his story was a rather tragic one. When he was young, he had lived with his parents and his twin sister in a small house in the Scottish Highlands, secluded enough to make the accident that had occurred when they were only five all the more drastic.

During the night, a damaged cable had caught fire, and within minutes the entire house had burned down. He had been the only one making it out alive. After that he had lived with his uncle who hated him with a passion, mentally and physically abusing the boy whenever he saw fit, and when Sebastian was sixteen, misfortune struck again, and the apartment they were living in fell victim to another unfortunate fire that took the older man's life. Unfortunate accident indeed, or so they said. It was also rumored that it had been arson, and considering his life so far, it certainly felt like a late revenge on the man who had made his life hell until then.

Instead of being charged though, Sebastian had found himself ushered away by his new 'parents' and had moved into the room next to Nebbia's. She had been immediately drawn to him, probably because of his exotic English accent. She certainly could listen to him talk for hours, and she found herself doing exactly that as they got very close very quickly. And when he had opened up to her, she had felt even more connected to him knowing about his life so far, and soon they had broken one of the many rules the house they lived in came with:

No sexual relations between 'family' members.

Yet their hormones had been stronger, and so they found themselves sneaking into the other's room at night and indulging in their need to be even closer to each other. For about two months now, they were hiding their special relationship, only expressing it during the night when everyone else was sleeping. During the day and mostly during school they were just friends, orphans living in the same house together, and nobody suspected a thing.

And it had started rather innocently also. They both suffered from nightmares, and she had found it easier to sleep when he was pressed tightly against her body, and vice versa. And then they had 'slipped' and suddenly his cock had been in her pussy and oopsie daisy, gone were the rules. Of course they wouldn't parade it around and always tried to keep their noises to a minimum, but she knew for a fact that at least Ryan knew what they were doing when the headboard of her bed was quietly slamming against the wall they shared on countless occasions.

Luckily he never said anything, he sometimes even turned up the volume of the porn videos he was watching to mask their very real noises. Which in turn brought Paul to his room, who was very meticulous about the rules, and loud music or other noises after curfew were a total no-go for him. He was the oldest and very much enjoyed living up to the expectation of caring for all the younger ones. Ryan included.

And how he cared for him.

Nebbia remembered a particular morning when Ryan had struggled to sit down at the kitchen island for breakfast. “What's wrong with you?” she asked, looking genuinely concerned when he would wince and take deep pained breaths.

But he would just smirk at her and raise his eyebrows. “Don't worry about me, I finally got some too,” he told her with a wink, and she frowned. “Guess who I made break his precious rules,” he added and nodded towards the bulky form that was Paul on the other side of the kitchen.

Her eyebrows shot up even more. “No way!” she breathed, her cheeks bright red.

“Oh, way!” he confirmed and remained leaning against the counter as he shoveled a spoonful of cereal into his mouth.

“Did you... like it?” she asked curiously. They never shied away from sharing these questions, there was something about Ryan that made it very easy to talk about those somewhat 'forbidden' things.

He groaned quietly and chuckled darkly. “Well, not at first. I mean, imagine something very girthy and long and hot being shoved into something very tight and small...”

She cringed at his words, not having to imagine anything, yet she tried her best not to show how badly her hands were shaking when she patted his arm consolingly. “Fuck, Ryan, that's... awful, I'm sorry...”

He only laughed, unaware of her discomfort and the truth behind her reaction. “Nah, it got better the more he moved, you know, the more, uh, friction there was. And then something tight and small became stretched and wide very soon.” She cleared her throat and shook her head at the images he planted in her head, focusing on his surprisingly happy face instead. “Incredible how... resilient and, well, accommodating some things are, eh?” he added and winked at her.

“I can't believe you made him break the rules!” she whispered with a side-glance at the blond behind them. “You think he'll do it again?”

Ryan smirked. “Oh I hope so, he seemed to have enjoyed himself too. Guess you're no longer the only ones doing it like rabbits!”

Her eyes widened, and she hit him in the chest, more or less playfully. “Ryan!” she hissed.

“Ah, come on! Hey, by the way, maybe you should try that too, I bet Sebby boy will be up for it!”

She hit him again and gave him another dark glare, forcing the memories down that reared their ugly heads in the back of her mind, but blushed all the same. Another wink and meaningful gaze later, she left him standing by the counter and went back to the table, sitting down next to Sebastian who had watched them with a dark shadow on his face.

“You two are awfully close,” he remarked quietly. Nebbia nudged his leg under the table.

“We're just friends, I told you,” she whispered and focused on pouring milk over her cereal.

He hummed in disbelief beside her, and she rolled her eyes before she leaned a little closer, her lips almost brushing against his ear. “He got railed by Paul last night,” she straight up told him and forced him into a coughing fit before he leaned away and stared at her with his ears burning red beneath his hair. She only chuckled and started eating her breakfast.

Later that night she fell asleep to the unmistakable sounds of a bed slamming against the wall next door and deep guttural grunts echoing through the silence of the night.

🔴When she woke up, she found herself in Sebastian's arms again. Inhaling deeply as she stirred, she snuggled against him, her hands rubbing along his arms. The house was quiet now. Time for them to change that.

Luckily for her, he had opted to slip into her bed already naked, joining her in her aversion to wear clothes at night, especially during those humid Midwestern summers. Her rear pressed against his groin provokingly until he moved as well and issued a deep groan. “What are you doing?” he mumbled into her hair, his voice low and husky, and she shuddered just hearing it as it vibrated through her entire body.

“Asking you to love me,” she whispered, continuing to buck against him.

“'m lovin' you,” he growled incoherently and pressed his lips to her skin, not moving any other limb or muscle.

Sighing deeply, she wiggled out of his tight embrace until she could roll around, somehow managing to push him onto his back before she climbed on top of him, her breasts squished between their bodies as she leaned on her elbows and cupped his face. “Love me with your dick in my pussy,” she told him and started grinding her pelvis against his groin.

“Language, darling,” he mumbled, finally opening his eyes to look at her, a tiny smirk playing around the corner of his mouth. She blushed, but not because of how crude and needy she sounded but because she loved it when he would call her darling, or love, or kitten, anything really, the accent made any pet name sound ten times better.

“Forgive me, kind sir,” she played along with a smirk of her own and the probably most offensive attempt at a posh English accent ever. “I am but a humble lady in dire need of some assistance. Would you be willing to help me?”

He barked a tired laugh. “Only if you drop whateveract that was and talk dirty to me again,” he muttered, his warm eyes wandering over her face.

She leaned in with a wide smile and claimed his mouth for a heated kiss. “Fuck me, Sebastian,” she mumbled against his lips, her breaths already quickened. “Fuck me until I cannot walk straight anymore.”

His eyebrows shot up as she looked at him to catch her breath. “You put an awful lot of pressure on me, you know that? I had a long and hard day,” he sighed.

“And you have a long and hard dick,” she replied with a wink, grinding her hips firmer against his erection. “But alright, you provide the hardware, I'll take care of the rest, okay?”

He chuckled. “Deal,” he said quietly and moved one hand up to grab the back of her head and pull her face closer to his again before capturing her lips for another passionate kiss. “Use me how you see fit then...”

“That's what I wanted to hear,” she mewled against him and gave him one more peck before she slowly slid down his body until she was settled right between his legs, pushing the covers away as she did so. Her hands rested on his hips as she took an appreciative look at what was in front of her.

His cock lay tall and proud on his lower stomach, deliciously erect, thick veins protruding, and his tip was already glistening in precum. Taking a deep breath, she leaned down and showered his heated flesh with gentle kisses, causing him to hum deeply as he relaxed under her ministrations. She continued the journey of her lips up and down his shaft, eventually letting her tongue join in as well as she took long broad strokes along it, relishing in the subtle twitches she coaxed out of him.

Her eyes wandered up to him while she closed one hand around his base and the other around his balls to give him a few soft squeezes as she lifted him up carefully. He watched her out of hooded eyes, chewing on his lips as he crossed his arms behind his head, giving her free rein over his needy member. Although she was probably a lot needier at the moment. Without breaking eye contact, she lowered her head towards the tip of his cock and let her tongue swirl around it, licking and teasing his slit, waiting for those drops to leak.

Humming softly against him, she then closed her lips around his crown and sucked hard, causing a deep moan to erupt from the back of his throat, before she took him in deeper, his lengthy girth hot and heavy on her tongue. For a long moment she was just suckling on him comfortably, adjusting to the sensation of feeling and tasting and smelling him so close. Despite the lewd nature of the action, she always felt almost relaxed when she had his dick in her mouth, relaxed and safe and without any care in the world as her mind went completely blank.

She could have stayed like this for hours, probably, yet it was always him, despite his initial reluctance, who turned the simple act of cockwarming into something more sexual. This time he inhaled sharply and bucked his hips against her, pushing his length even deeper into her mouth. She let out a soft whimper and looked up at him, meeting his heated gaze. He licked his lips and watched her.

“What happened to fuck me until I cannot walk straight anymore?” he asked, his voice raspy.

She blinked slowly, then moved back and released his cock with a wet pop. “My, how impatient we are tonight,” she teased and licked up some strands of saliva from her lips. “I thought you were too tired to do anything?”

“I'm never too tired to fuck your brains out, love,” he replied with a smirk and leaned up on his elbows.

She raised an eyebrow and tilted her head. “Make up your mind, lover boy,” she whispered, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth as she felt the heat of his words gathering inside her stomach and way lower. “Can I use you or do you wanna fuck me?”

“Put your lips around my cock and find out,” he told her and reached one hand down to grab her hair.

Her eyes bored into his almost defiantly, yet she complied and wrapped her lips once more around his girth, eagerly pulling him in deeper as she hollowed her cheeks and sucked. He groaned at the motion and gripped her hair tighter before he forced her head down further. Another whimper escaped her, and she had to close her eyes as he hit the back of her throat. Her fingers dug into his hips as she steadied herself, before she started (under his guidance) to bob her head up and down on him, her lips straining around his cock as it moved in and out of her mouth, scraping over her tongue, teasing against her tonsils.

Each downward motion made her flinch when he pushed further and further into her throat. Forcing herself not to gag, she ignored the tears collecting under her lashes and kept moving, the urge to feel him and satisfy him stronger than even the urge to breathe at some point. His grip was firm, yet never too forceful, he knew exactly which buttons to push to keep her moving on her own.

If she would have had the brain capacity to think back to the beginning of their relationship, she would have wondered how fast she had turned from absolutely despising and downright dreading physical contact to being completely in awe about it, at least when it came to touching and getting touched by Sebastian. He had turned her trauma into nothing but lust and desire for him, from one extreme to the next, she was well aware of that, but she honestly couldn't care less.

She needed him, everything of him, be it his arms holding her tightly, his lips giving her gentle kisses, or his cock pushed deep down her throat or better yet buried within her pussy as if he was an extension of her own body. It was a strange kind of obsession, and the only normal thing about it was the fact that he needed her in the exact same way. They complemented one another, physically and mentally, and she couldn't be more grateful about it.

Having him face fuck her might have been somewhat degrading in the eyes of others, but firstly: nobody would ever see them like this, and secondly: she loved it, because she knew he would also bury his own face in her wet folds in just the same manner without her even asking for it. They lived for each other, and there was nothing stopping them, no rules, no other family members, nobody.

Or so she naively thought...

Lightheaded and drunk on the taste and smell of him, she kept bobbing her head, taking his cock as deep as possible until she was able to force his tip into her tight throat and hold him there. Feeling the tremors of his body and hearing his deep groans only heightened the heat burning between her legs as she moaned around him, before she leaned back and took a much needed breath, precum and saliva dripping from her lips.

Once her lungs stopped aching, she dove back in and repeated the motion, taking him deep into her throat until she was able to swallow around him, squeezing his tip enough to coax more groans and grunts out of him, while his fingers dug into her hair almost painfully.

“Fuck,” he exclaimed under his breath and jerked his hips against her face erratically, causing her to whimper and even gag around him until she had to lean back and cough and swallow the spit gathering on her tongue.

She never waited long to continue her ministrations, yet when she felt him twitching inside her mouth, she quickly grabbed his base and leaned away, breathlessly staring at him, before she scrambled to her knees and straddled him urgently as she guided his leaking cock towards her wet folds.

Without any hesitation or further preparation, because she was already wet enough just from sucking him off, she lowered her body and pressed his hard length into her tight pussy, a strangled moan escaping her as she felt him slipping into her warmth until he was balls deep inside of her.

He groaned as well, his hands finding her waist as he held onto her, his face flushed, and she knew he was ready to spill his seed into her wet depths, and while some might consider that the end of love-making, it was only the beginning for her. After a short period of adjusting to his size, with more and more shudders rushing through her body, she started riding his cock with reckless abandon, moaning and whimpering on top of him, as her walls clenched around him, assisting in pushing him further over the edge.

His fingers dug into her skin as his face contorted in a mixture of pain and pleasure, and when he came, he grunted loudly, pushing his hips upwards into her while she could feel the thick ropes of cum filling her up with every frantic twitch of his cock. She arched her head back, her hands resting on his chest as she started grinding her hips against him, relishing in the feeling of his warmth. When she eventually leaned up on her knees and continued riding him slowly, he had already collapsed onto the bed, his eyes closed, his lips parted, his breath shallow.

But she wasn't done yet, and she would keep bouncing on him until he got hard all over again, if he wanted to or not. With her body undulating rhythmically against him, her hair falling over her shoulders and her small breasts jiggling with every strain of her thighs as she moved up and down steadily, she felt herself getting closer to her own release as her walls clenched more and more around him. Breathing heavier from the exertion, her legs burning from the constant strain, she arched her head back and stared at the ceiling, her fingers gliding up and down his chest with every motion of her hips.

Suddenly his hands were on her wrists, his long fingers moving up her arms until he palmed at her breasts. Looking down at him out of hooded eyes, she smiled tiredly, while he eyed her intently, watching her every move as he rubbed his hands over her hard nipples. More moans slipped from her trembling lips, the tension within her stomach building, the tight coil ready to burst any second.

With a groan she started moving faster on top of him, her hands holding onto his shoulders as she leaned slightly forward to get better leverage, her hips really slamming against his now, the slapping of skin against skin mixing with the creaking of the bed. She was so close, she could feel it, her muscles contracting almost painfully, but her legs hurt and every move seemed to exhaust her even more.

Whining quietly, she pressed her lips together and kept going, really pushing herself to finally reach the desired heights. And then she felt his arms snaking around her torso before he pulled her against him with a smack that coaxed a surprised shriek out of her. Embracing her tightly, he pressed her to his chest, her face buried in the crook of his neck, as he finally started moving with her, his hips snapping upwards at the same rapid pace she had provided.

Her moans were muffled and luckily so because they were far louder now as he drove his length deeper and deeper into her, hitting all the right spots, over and over again, until she finally succumbed to the sensations. Crying out louder than she probably should have, given their circumstances, she felt her entire body shuddering, her pussy fluttering around his cock as he kept pounding into her through her orgasm. Stars danced behind her tightly shut eyelids, and she felt her head spinning as she clung onto him, letting him take the reins to finish her off.

Her release gushed around him and her body spasmed under the tremors as he held her through it all, his breath as heavy as hers as he panted into her ear. Slowly he ceased his movements before he pushed her down on him hard, burying his cock deep within her wet warmth, their combined juices seeping past their connection mercilessly. She lay on top of him, her heart thundering against his own, her limbs boneless and twitching uncontrollably.

Their sweat slick bodies molded together as they both came down from their highs eventually. Barely able to move, she shifted only slightly and turned her head to him, her nose nuzzling against his neck. For a long moment she just lay there, breathing against his skin as his arms held her tightly, keeping her warm and safe and close to him.

Her breaths eased slowly, and despite her fucked-out state, she felt the urge to continue as she pressed her lips to his neck and gingerly licked along his pulse, feeling his heartbeat thrum against her tongue. He moaned softly beneath her, tightening his hold on her before he moved his big hands over her back until his eager fingers grabbed her ass and kneaded it firmly. She hummed against his skin, kissing and sucking and licking it eagerly, while he groped her soft flesh and pulled the cheeks apart to tease a fingertip into her tight hole.

She squirmed then and gasped, her lips frozen in place in the middle of working a hickey into his neck. Her heart beat faster as something forced itself through her clouded mind, all the way from the darkness of the furthest corner where she kept those things she never wanted to think about again.

He felt her reaction and quickly withdrew his finger, moving his hands up to rub soothing circles over her back. “I'm sorry,” he whispered quietly. She swallowed hard and took a shuddering breath as she buried her face in the crook of his neck.

“It's... alright...” she mumbled, still fighting the emotions breaking through the walls she had built around them.

“No, I... I forgot, I won't do it again,” he muttered, his low voice vibrating through her head, doing its part to help her push the memories back.

They had shared their life stories early on in their relationship, and while she knew that Sebastian had indeed deliberately burned his apartment down and killed his uncle to be free of him, he also knew about the circumstances that had brought her into this house full of orphans. It had been one of her lowest points to share it with him, but he had listened and consoled her admirably, and afterwards she had felt like a weight had been lifted off her chest.

But despite having shared her trauma, it was still too easy to trigger her with the most random things (even though a finger in her butt was certainly a rather obvious trigger). She was determined, though, to hold onto her mantra of not looking back and focus on the present, especially if said present was holding her in his warm embrace, trying to squeeze all the darkness out of her.

She inhaled deeply and turned her head, her eyes wandering over his profile. He met her gaze when she leaned up on one elbow, a silent understanding surging through the air between them, before she pushed it all back again and pressed her lips to his, concentrating on the sensations he was giving her right now instead of past occurrences that couldn't hurt her anymore.

He kissed her back quickly, urgently, his hand grabbing the back of her head to pull her closer as he slipped his tongue between her trembling lips and met hers in a heated dance. Breathless and lightheaded, she hummed and whimpered against his mouth, even grinding her hips against him once more, feeling his cock twitching inside her as it came back to life.

A deep grunt echoed in her ears as he wrapped his arms around her waist and swiftly rolled them around until he had her pinned to the bed, his body pushing her deep into the soft mattress. Her eyes fluttered open, and for a moment they just stared at each other, their hot breaths mingling, making her even more dizzy. Before she knew it, he grabbed her legs and wrapped them around his waist, then started moving his hips against her, plunging deep into her wet depths, his dark eyes boring into hers.

He had the darkest, most sinister expression when he was focused that always sent chills down her spine. That look also meant that he was hellbent on bringing her to the edge of pleasure in record time, only to hold her there for as long as possible. And while he leaned up on his arms and knees to get better leverage, she clung to him helplessly, her body melting under his powerful thrusts as he held her waist with an iron grip.

Moaning and whimpering, her voice strained, her heavy breathing broken up every time he would hit the deepest spot in her clenching pussy, she succumbed to the blissful void quickly, her mind running empty as her body spasmed beneath him, her juices flowing freely, creating a cacophony of wet squelching sounds and skin slapping against skin mixed with the rhythmic yet slightly erratic slamming of the headboard against the wall.

His own grunts were muffled when he leaned down to capture her mouth for a searing kiss but his rapid movements barely gave them the chance to kiss properly as he pushed her body up and down the bed, keeping them in a constant state of motion, two bodies colliding with fervor but still working in unison to bring them both higher and higher, and while she kept coming forcefully around him, he eventually groaned deeply as his tight balls slapped against her ass.

She cried out and thrashed her head back, lifting her hips off the bed as the most powerful wave yet crashed over her while he gave her that final deep thrust to bury his throbbing length all the way inside her until he emptied himself right into her contracting womb, spilling his seed warm and comforting in her depths.

Her thighs twitched uncontrollably, her toes curled up, and for a moment she was bent in the most pleasurable position, arched off the bed, held by Sebastian's strong arms as her feet dug into his lower back, deeply connected as their orgasms joined forces and shuddered through them powerfully. And then she collapsed back onto the bed with a deep exhale, her limbs twitching but boneless, her heart thundering in her chest, her mind blissfully empty while her pussy overflowed with his warm cum.

He sighed contently as he lowered himself carefully on top of her, not wanting to squish her too much, but he knew she loved feeling his weight on her, like a comfort blanket pressing all her worries out of her tiny body. Her walls still clenched around him, holding his cock in their tight embrace, savoring the warm sensation spreading within her.

For the longest moment she just lay there, smothered by his larger frame, her legs too tired to hold onto him anymore as they fell to his sides, twitching. Her hands ran over the sheets mindlessly as she slowly regained some semblance of control over her body. With a soft moan she raised her arms and wrapped them around his neck before she pressed her lips to his jaw, gingerly moving them up until she claimed his mouth for a lazy kiss.

He breathed loudly against her, kissing her back with his eyes closed, his tongue barely meeting the vigor of her own. She leaned away slowly to watch his deeply relaxed face, his cheeks blushed, and even in the dimly lit room she could have counted all of his freckles when he rested his forehead against hers and watched her out of hooded eyes.

“Thank you for loving me,” she whispered, gently cupping his face with slightly shaking hands. “With your dick in my pussy and otherwise,” she added and saw him smirking before he leaned in to kiss her softly.

“Anytime, kitten,” he muttered, and it was his low voice and the pet name and the way he pronounced it that made her moan into his mouth. He chuckled and nuzzled his nose against hers playfully. “Thank you for letting me love you, I know it might not have been easy for you...”

“It was very easy to fall in love with you, Sebastian,” she said quietly and ran her fingers through his hair. “You made it very, very easy...”

“I'm glad,” he replied and smiled at her warmly.🔴

She watched him intently, slowly calming down as she felt his warmth and strength and comforting presence, and she could have stayed like this forever, but reality came with a sudden knock on her door, and she flinched badly, almost knocking him out by smacking her forehead against his.

He leaned back with a sigh and rolled off her, breaking their connection too swiftly for her liking. It wasn't the first time they were interrupted, and he quickly made his way off the bed and into the ensuite bathroom while she scrambled into a sitting position, trying to ignore the shaking of her legs and his seed dripping past her folds. Grabbing a blanket from a nearby chair, she wrapped herself in it and slowly made her way to the door.

Another rapid knock made her flinch. “What?” she called before carefully opening it and peeking into the hallway beyond.

On the other side stood Ryan, with his arms crossed in front of his chest, his head tilted. “Sorry to disturb the little fuck fest you had going on,” he said with a grin, his voice low enough to not carry through the hall, but she shushed him all the same while blushing badly. “Just wanted to give you a heads-up. They're here,” he added, his gaze turning more serious when he said those last words that made her freeze on the spot.

Panic rushed through her limbs. “Fuck,” she grimaced and looked past him down the corridor. “Where –”

“Still downstairs, putting up the new month's chores I bet,” he told her. “Don't worry, they probably didn't hear you, even though I did. Holy hell, Nae, you really have to learn to keep it down... I could barely keep up.”

She stared at him with wide eyes, her blush spreading all over her body as she pulled the blanket tighter around herself. Suddenly Sebastian was behind her, completely dressed with only his messier-than-usual hair an indication of what they had just done.

“Stop jerking off to my girlfriend, you bloody bastard,” he grumbled as he stared at the older boy.

Ryan gave him a toothy grin. “Who said I was jerking off to her?” The wink he gave Sebastian made the latter step back with a frown, his cheeks bright red as well. Nebbia cleared her throat and grabbed the front of his shirt, urging him to look at her.

“They're here,” she whispered pressingly, and Sebastian nodded and pushed past her onto the hallway, trying to avoid getting anywhere near Ryan.

“See you later,” he said quietly, squeezing her hand before he left her and headed to his own room.

Nebbia looked back to Ryan and rolled her eyes before giving him a playful shove. “Thanks for the warning, now if you'll excuse me, I have to scrape the memory of you hitting on my boyfriend out of my brain...”

He laughed at that and winked at her, then turned around and walked towards the stairs leading down while she closed the door and prepared to meet their 'parents' and hopefully not get scolded for breaking their precious rules.

When she came down the stairs into the crowded kitchen, dressed and clean and as innocent as she could appear, she suddenly found herself staring at a sight she hadn't expected. Not only did she see the people who took her in two years ago, laughing and talking to their younger foster children, looking like the loving parents they pretended to be, but next to them stood a tall young man whose gaze was immediately trained on her, cold gray eyes boring right into her damaged soul, ripping open any seams and tearing down any walls she had built up after she had last seen them.

He was here.

Her heart stopped, her breath became erratic, cold sweat broke from her skin as she stood there and stared at him. It was the hint of a malicious grin moving the corner of his mouth that made her take a step back, then another, until she turned around with her heart thundering inside her chest and ran out of the kitchen, out of the house, onto the large driveway and away from him as fast as she possibly could, barely noticing anything around her as panic flooded her mind and hot tears spilled from her lashes.

She didn't even register the footsteps following her.

// - CHAPTER 2 →

End notes: The next chapter will focus on Nebbia's trauma and there will be no Sebastian. If you like a bit of noncon smut, this might still be something for you!

This is also a dumping ground for my darkest and most depraved ideas, things I can't usually put into my (happy) smutty oneshots, but as a new year's resolution I told myself to delve into other themes as well, especially angst which I always enjoyed writing, so it'll get a lot darker on here, but also fluffier as that's another goal I have. Though there might be no fluff in this particular story!

Now, thank you for reading and I hope I have caught your interest with this first chapter and you might enjoy reading more! Let me know!

[ MASTERLIST ] [ AO3 ]

[ryuichirou]

Replies

Also shorter ones today… mostly related to our previous replies and posts!

Anonymous asked:

After seeing Eel Floyd with Riddle

AND THOSE BITE MARKS 👀👀👀👀

I gotta know -

Did Floyd slip and slide in Riddle?

Or

Also

Did Riddle magically goldfish form and the two had merman sex???

Honestly I wasn’t thinking about Riddle also becoming a merman, but they absolutely have to have merman sex at some point, otherwise it just isn’t fair (to me) lol

And to answer your first question, yes, there might have been some slipping and sliding in Riddle involved~

Anonymous asked:

re: the gaslighting Jade ask. I randomly stumbled on your blog from other ones, and I literally blocked you because shroudcest triggers me. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own safety. As long as it’s properly marked for (which yours clearly is since I blocked you the second I made a tumblr), really all we can do is filter the things that hurt us out.

(im agreeing with you btw. draw what you want i cant stop you. just feel like i in particular make a point worth mentioning from seeing that. you can answer this or not bc obviously i probably wont see it anyway)

Anon! Whether you see this reply or not, thank you very much for writing this despite having us blocked lol

You really are making a good point, and I am glad that you are taking care of yourself and avoiding uncomfortable stuff. I really encourage it. Thank you for understanding and for approaching this issue with respect.

Have a good day.

Anonymous asked:

Gaslighting IS Jade’s love language. Also mushrooms.

Facts, Anon <3 He doesn’t waste his gaslighting and mushrooms on those he doesn’t find entertaining love!

Anonymous asked:

Honestly I can totally see Cater as the kind of guy that now and then buys a random manga just because the cover looks aesthetically pleasing, although if they are BL they are probably more oriented towards shonen-ai than explicit content. But also he wouldn't really read them because he finds the stories and characters a bit ridiculous (is he a bitter anti-romantic? or maybe his sisters used to collect shojo manga and he associates the love story genre with them?). I bet when he had roommates he had fun leaving one of his manga lying around, just to see people's reaction and go "aw, shoot, you saw it? that's sooo embarassing..." or something like that

To be honest, I can see that too. Cater seems like someone who isn’t all that into anime and manga, but is aware of it enough to recognise that the cover is pretty and that there is something gay inside (he might figure out the latter thing later as he looks inside the book lol). His sisters really could be into it though, so I can see him having certain associations.

lol Cater’s roommates “finding” his manga though… Don’t act so coy, Cater 😭

Anonymous asked:

Goddammit! Idia, you cannot escape me for long, one way or another, your chest will be licked! *shakes fist at the sky*

I love how this is turning into a Looney Tunes cartoon…

Anonymous asked:

Idia doesn’t have nipples. He accidentally shaved them off. Tragic 😔 L in the chat for his nipples.

Damn. I’m afraid I have bad news for the previous Anon.

Anonymous asked:

Do you have any HCs for Neige and/or Chenya?

We do have HCs about Neige/Vil and Chenya/Riddle (1,2)!

Anonymous asked:

It is I, 🐩 anon,

So I got a friend into twst and tell me why her favorite character is goddamn Crowley? I'm currently trying to convert her to Divus supremacy. Enough about this. Let me ask my silly little question.

Is there anything about TWST's story plot that you dislike or wished it was worked on more? Or character you wish were more fleshed out? 

Your friend has quite the taste… She is probably a genius of sorts 😔🙏

I feel like I was pretty vocal about it, so I am sorry for talking about it again, but I really didn’t enjoy how Ch2 was handled and Leona in general, to be honest. I wrote a post about my grievances a whole year ago, but my stance didn’t really change. We’ve rewatched the majority of the main story since then, and I thought that maybe with fresh minds and fresh eyes we would enjoy Leona at least to some degree, but unfortunately it didn’t really help. The events don’t really help either…

There might be some other things, but this is the one I think about every time when we talk about the flaws of TWST writing.

Anonymous asked:

what is your notp?

A bunch of Leona ships come to mind, i.e. Leona/Malleus, Leona/Vil, Leona/Idia 🤔 But also a bunch of Trey ships, like Trey/Jade or Rook/Trey…

Anonymous asked:

if you had to go on a date with one of the twst boys who are you picking? i'm picking idia

Idia is a great option, Anon; he would be so uncomfortable and awkward, getting nervous about the smallest inconveniences and whispering “thank god” every time you don’t force him to do something… I would pick him to, but my second option would be Jamil. I think he’s pretty chill.

Katsu would've picked Jade because of course, this is the best pick.

Anonymous asked:

any old fandoms that you feel out of love with?

Can’t think of any, Anon… I feel like we never fall completely out of love with anything, just move on, but there is always an opportunity that we’ll come back at some point. Things like Homestuck are still on our minds constantly lol

There are some titles that we kind of started watching, but then stopped because it wasn’t fully out yet, and since then we kind of lost interest for this thing. And with some of these titles it’s very unlikely that we’ll ever go back, but it’s never 1000% impossible. But then again, it’s not like we loved these titles…

Anonymous asked:

Funfact: The crowley that crowley is named after used to perform sex based magic with men

Damn I hope this is what our Crowley also does. This is his dark secret that is very poorly hidden

Anonymous asked:

I think Riddle would be a really good teacher's pet

Oh he would <3 He is a teacher’s pet.

Ironically, I feel like this makes him a bit boring for Crewel…although it depends…🤔

Anonymous asked:

What is a ship you rarely draw but you love

I don’t draw any of them enough, I love them all! Waaaaah :(

I feel like I don’t draw Sebek/Silver nearly enough for how much we love them, Rook/Epel is also a rare one but we love it, Sebek/Idia could use more love, anything with Jamil too…

Anonymous asked:

Please share with us a full list of the preference of the TWST boys? Top or bottom? I typed up a list for you to use!

Anon, we have a list in our pinned post! But since you’ve typed up a list, I’ll go through the list again :) We also have a post in which we explain our reasoning for each choice, so you can read it too if you’re interested.

Oh! And if you meant some other types of preferences, please let me know. In that case though, we have a list of the boys’ kinks, which isn’t the same thing, but pretty close; so you can read this one too if you want <3

Riddle – bottom

Ace – top

Deuce – bottom

Trey – top

Cater – top

Leona – bottom

Ruggie – top

Jack  - top

Azul – top

Floyd – top

Jade – top

Kalim – top

Jamil – bottom

Vil – bottom

Rook – top

Epel – bottom

Idia – bottom

Ortho  – top

Malleus– bottom

Sebek  – top

Lilia  – top

Silver– bottom

[nulltune]

any rp wishlist ??

I HAVE A LOT!!!! omg... screams into my hands this is a heck of a question anon- TYSM!! ❤️❤️ i have a wishlist tag too actually- but i don't post much in it because tbh all interactions feed me so well...... i love hakuno dearly you see (live lynn reaction: 🥺🥹😩🫶💗) and she's always interacting with all kinds of interesting muses so tis a guaranteed fun time 🥳 and also like. hakuno as a character is defined as a nobody with nothing so you can expect pretty anything to be a new experience 2 her :,) OK BUT YEA BACK TO UR Q! WHEN IT COMES TO WISHLIST THO HRMGHH that's a tough one..... cuz i have sm!!! so off the top of my head:

this is rlly general but oooo i want hakuno to go to all sorts of places! she is already someone who is so curious, exploring the world to try to find a place in it. spoiler alert she doesn't but i digress! imagine your muse showing her a place they like... or a by-chance encounter where hakuno stumbles on their little secret spot.... hakuno would be pretty inquisitive because she can't imagine having such an attachment to any place, but i think it'd be real interesting to explore! and also- your muse and hakuno going on a trip somewhere... sightseeing and having fun together mayhaps,, the possibilities are endless so i can't really specify but i just think it's neat! 🥺

"i'd die for you" "i'll live for you" "let's live together" "let's die together" <- whatever those lines got going on!!! not all of them at once ofc (unless things happens and they all apply at some point 👁👁✨️) but just whatever genre this is..... life and death are interesting topics to explore with hakuno – she's someone who can understand what it's like to want to disappear, but at the same time she's someone who's afraid of death. and she wants to love so badly but has no reason to </3 so i wanna explore more of that in general !!! i wanna see her interact muses who share that same mindset... muses who think completely differently.... let them explore what their purpose is... their reason to live... and all that!

tragic love is such a Big Need for meee, i'm a sucker for them!!! and i really think it's so perfect for hakuno!!! i hope everyone knows by now that i love the theme of love for my hakuno 🫶 and like- imagine finally understanding and finding love when you thought you never could, only to lose it... unrequited love? a doomed love story? there are so many ways to go about it, and who the other person might be makes it so much more interesting too, and i just crave it!!

hakuno and a muse working together for something- a relationship founded on ??? like, they just happen to meet and their goals just somewhat aligned so they're sticking together for practical reasons or just circumstances!! will they get to know each other better and come out of it with a good experience? will they butt heads but decide to bear with it until their respective goals are accomplished? idk but something about it intrigues me! i'm really interested in having like a whole storyline happen tbh 🥺 it'd be fun to see how much the relationship changes at the end of things y'know!

i'm gonna need more antagonistic dynamics too tbh.... she is absolutely going to be as polite and nice as she is to any other person because c'mon... it's Hakuno. but! i feel like there's a biiig sense of distance that comes with having this sort of dynamic with her. as we have seen in canon for example, hakuno's really frikkin aware of their status as enemies with other character- she's always saying stuff like "even though we're enemies?" and not understanding why'd be nice to her when she's their enemy... stuff like that!! i mean, enemies to friends or enemies to lovers is def not out of the question ((ФωФ)✨️ ...) but it'd be so fun to see the development!! which i guess is the appeal of those dynamics in da first place !

i love character development ofc but i have always been thinking about- how about reverse character development ?! 😳 hakuno is a suuper interesting character to me because- well, it's like a white sheet of paper! it's blank! i feel like there are soo many directions her character could go and i think it'd be so fun to explore! characters who bring out the worst in each other maybe?? enable each others' bad habits?? and oh boy it'd hurt so much on hakuno's part because she wants to be better and is always wanting the best for others so like (: IT COULD BE FUN METHINKS..!

letter writing threads!! i feel like you can tell a lot about a muse by the kind of letter they write 👁👁✨️ having hakuno write down her thoughts and feelings into paper just sounds super interesting to okok- i'd imagine her letters sounding more like very formal reports tbh 💀 but i think it could be so fun and a really neat way to really get the Insight(TM) on da muse!

speaking of the letter writing tho- something related to arts and humanities! drawing? music? writing? sculpting? dance? anything and everything creative pls. hakuno's way of thinking is very logical so i think she struggles with understanding things that don't really have a solid factual answer, but that's also what makes it so interesting! art can really touch people's hearts too and that's the kind of thing hakuno needs desperately 🥹 even if she can't fully understand it right now ! your muse showing hakuno their creations maybe?? bonus points if their works say a lot about them as a person or means a lot of them!

i'm a sucker for childhood friends so i want that for hakuno too 🤧✨️ !! it doesn't have to be friends in specific tho- i just think there's something special about knowing someone when they were younger :thonk: kids tend to be more honest i guess? and i mean hakuno still is, but for better or worse, the hakuno we now know keeps the "bad" parts of herself hidden away while actively trying to be the person other people need – a younger hakuno wouldn't have that mindset yet methinks! BUT YEA BACK TO WHAT I WAS SAYING 😳😳 it's fun to see how that could affect the dynamic especially when they meet later on!

OH AND immortal & mortal is a staple! hakuno could work as both tho... it rlly depends on the verse because her mortality is Weird(TM) actually- but i still think both concepts would be very fun!! >:3c with her as a mortal, it'd be Neat for her to want to be remembered because that's asking for a lot when her entire life is probably like a mere blink in the eyes of an immortal </3 and with her as an immortal, i just like the idea of her finding happiness after possibly years and years of loneliness but also being aware that happiness is very much temporary </3

I FEEL LIKE THESE R MORE DYNAMICS AND THEMES THAN SPECIFIC SCENARIOS BC LIKE i wuv...... and i luv scenarios and situations too ofc but i can't rlly specify bc they're all so neat 2 me.!!! your muse and hakuno could literally just go to mcdonald's and i'd be havin a blast writing it GVSMCBSMDH

[darkcircles4lyfe]

Why Tiger is kind of a big deal, actually

Folks, I have a headache. I just spent the better part of my day doing research, and having even less fun than I expected while doing it. However, coming out the other end of it, I can say this: Tiger, in terms of representation of trans male characters in manga and anime, is practically an anomaly. And we should all be more aware of the weight that carries, not just because it shows how little representation we have, but also because maybe this says something about Horikoshi. Before I get into that, though, some backstory. 

Originally, I wanted to do this as quantitatively as possible, show you how much representation there is, where and when and who it comes from, regardless of how subjectively good or bad it is. Basically all I wanted to say was, “look, there isn't much.” But even I didn’t realize just how bad and messy things were going to turn out to be. I’m not going to show you my spreadsheet because it’s a fucking dumpster fire. For starters, there are a lot more instances of trans female characters, some that could be described as non-binary, genderfluid, or otherwise ambiguous, and very few trans male characters. I ended up with a list of about 20 alleged trans male characters, spanning roughly 40 years of Japanese media. (Not exhaustive, especially because not everything is available in English) Of those, some turned out to be inexplicit/vague/unclear, some were tragic, some were demeaning, some were very minor characters, and some belonged to creators and/or stories with exceptionally problematic aspects. Again I’m not gonna show you my spreadsheet because it got messy and subjective and honestly I was so frustrated I kinda lost my patience. In the end, only one survived as a manga I will definitely be seeking out for substantial, gratifying, therapeutic representation of someone like me. That one manga is Boys Run the Riot, by the way. I wish I could say more about it here, but I haven’t read it yet! Anyway, a few more did survived this filtering process excluding the fact that they’re minor characters, and Tiger was one of them. I want to reiterate how utterly abysmally tiny this pool of characters is. But I swear I still want to have some fun with this post, so let’s talk about Tiger, aka Chatora Yawara.

And what’s more fun than calling out our good buddy Mr. CC on his translating bullshit! Yeah! This all started when I was looking back at ch 72 and I realized something didn’t make sense:

Like, what does this even mean? “Genre?” “Wrong??” I can’t even understand what this statement is referring to exactly, just that it sounds bad. Seems very much like something got lost in translation. I unfortunately can’t really do the work myself, especially without access to the original Japanese, but sometimes I like to try to triangulate with multiple translations put together. Btw though, if you have access to the Japanese versions and can/want to translate, please do reach out to me to either confirm or deny all this. For now, here is a side by side comparison of officials (blue) vs. available fanscans (yellow) for Tiger’s introduction:

It’s subtle, but the officials get things a little more muddled. The most glaring difference is that CC has Aizawa refer to the whole hero team as “these ladies,” which sounds very bad! Idk if the original Japanese has any gendered language to justify translating it to “ladies,” but I’m guessing probably not. My interpretation of what went wrong here is that CC thought Horikoshi wanted to make Tiger being trans part of the joke, playing it for shock value, when really what was meant by “wrong gender” was more like “the only Pussycat who isn’t a woman,” and not “wrong” as in “mutilated woman who thinks she’s a man” (yes, transphobes call us that). After all, how would Deku be able to tell Tiger is trans and be shocked about it anyway? The other comments make a lot more sense with the added translator note in the fanscan as well, letting us know that the whole bit is a reference to Billy Blanks. Hence the “wrong genre.” Basically, all put together, the scene is actually just a joke about Tiger being a hard-ass buff dude instead of a cute, fun little kitty. So yeah, this is all fine. Cannot stress enough how refreshing that is after the research hell I went through today. 

Now let me get into what takes Tiger from okay to great in terms of representation. I want to underline the seemingly tiny detail that he is 31 years old and has been a part of his team for 12 years, so since they were 19. That likely means they were all friends in high school and had already been planning to work together for years. Perhaps their friendship even dates back before Tiger came out and started transitioning. I mean, imagine young Yawara happily befriending a group of girls (same bro, same) but being uneasy about the fact that the hero agency Ryuko is dreaming of starting is going to have them all themed as catgirls. Like, if he comes out, will he ruin that dream? But no, he cares enough about them and they care enough about him that it makes no difference whatsoever, and he even has fun going along with the theme too. Seriously, the fact that he has a gender-nonconforming style of hero costume is some next level shit. 

The other thing that makes him great is he’s just, there. Doing his thing. No one questions him, acts like he’s a fraud, scandalizes or misgenders him. His being trans at all is only mentioned in a quick note next to his sketch page, which is fine by me tbh. Better that than some dramatic reveal. He also doesn’t have any stereotypical traits. I mean, I guess some trans men being gym rats is kind of a stereotype, but not a bad one? It’s more of an actual thing that we can joke about. A negative portrayal I would expect might emphasize a trans man’s “womanly” body, for example, simultaneously fetishizing and mocking it. If anything the fact that Tiger’s body is very masculine suggests he was designed by someone who knows how medical transition works, and the fact that he happily participates in gender-nonconformity suggests he was designed by someone who understands the complexity and diversity of gender presentation. He’s just ya know, casually and quietly one of the most genuine representations of a trans man in manga ever.

Horikoshi does seem to have a way of making even the most minor characters feel real and complex. But with this there’s more to it than that. Trans men fly under the radar constantly. People don’t know shit about us. They forget we even exist. No cishet man who decides on a whim to make up a random trans male character magically gets it right. So lemme just point at Tiger with every ounce of emphasis I can possibly cram into my finger, and look you in the eye with the war-hardened stare of someone who has seen just about goddamn everything: This. Is. Significant. In a world where trans men get next to zero representation, let alone decent representation, this isn’t just good, it’s suspiciously good. Like Horikoshi Knows Things type of good. I hate to go here, but I don’t know how else to articulate this... like, in my spreadsheet elimination, the only examples that fared as well or better than Tiger were written by actual queer people and/or come from stories with more major queer characters. At the very least this means that for a cishet man, Horikoshi is way more knowledgable of lqbtq+ issues than average, and at most…well, you know what I’m getting at. I will also go ahead and say that a character like Tiger could very well be a sign of Horikoshi testing the waters for other more central queer characters in the future, getting a read on his audience, editors, publisher, etc. and how they react to it.

Regardless, I’m writing this post not to speculate, but because I want y’all to be armed with the confidence to say Horikoshi is on your side, and not the side of the ignorant dudes who think bnha is their personal plaything. I’m tired of those people pissing all over this manga like it’s their turf. You know, the kind of people who tell you bnha is a shounen, which means it’s “for boys,” straight, cisgender boys, and you don’t belong here so you should shut up or go read something else. Please take this post as a reminder that you’re not delusional, you do belong here, and you're in good hands with Horikoshi, whether you’re queer yourself or just enjoy a good queer ship/headcanon. 

Anyway have a nice rest of your Pride Month everybody <3

^also enjoy this little exchange with class A, it’s very cute

[ghostwriterofthemachine]

will you pretty please tell me about how teen wolf is a shonen??

Oh Griffin you're gunna be so sorry you asked.

I started thinking about this in the first place because I was pondering about the genuinely weird fan reaction to the first couple of seasons of Teen Wolf. Mostly, how people went "this is a concept we like!" and then had no idea what to do with and how to react to the main cast.

To be totally fair, part of this is because the writing of the first season is even worse than you remember it being and the Scott/Allison romance, which is supposed to be the show's centerpiece, is maybe the worst written part of all of it. Another part of it is that the acting talent skewed very young (Dylan O'Brian and Tyler Posey were both only 19/20 during season 1) and their ability to work with this frankly terrible material was a little bit uneven (Posey got WAY better as the show went on and by the end of it was really great imo, but oh man. that first season is not his best work).

But I also think there's a genre and genre convention thing going on here. Let me explain.

(disclaimer because this is a public post on tumblr: this is not that serious and is mostly a thought experiment in genre conventions please don't take it that seriously)

When did Teen Wolf first air? 2011. What were some comparable shows coming out about that time, or that an audience who wanted to watch Teen Wolf might also have watched/been aware of?

The Vampire Dairies, Supernatural, probably something like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

What do some of these shows have in common?

Snarky/sarcastic main characters (Dean Winchester, Buffy)

Main characters who are often gray-moral or struggle with a pull to The Dark Side (the moral compasses in these shows are usually part of the supporting cast) (and are always high up on the list to be killed off for drama tbh)

Pre-streaming TV formula (episodic monster-of-the-week builds to a larger plot which is resolved in the last 4th of the season)

Romance that relies strongly on will they/won't they, love triangles, and edgy angsty 2000s vampire shenanigans.

You will notice that Teen Wolf has. basically none of this?

Teen Wolf has:

A painfully sincere main character

That same main character is about as moral and stick-to-his-guns as they come

Said main character gives Big Sweeping Speeches that convince irredeemable bad guys to be on his side instead of theirs.

Structured in clear and well-defined arcs, no episodic monster-of-the-week, where the bad guys keep getting bigger and scott's party keeps needing to power up to deal with them.

Audience knows who Scott is gunna end up with pretty much immediately (even when Scott moves on from Allison because of IRL cast fuckery, he always has one main romantic objective and works toward that)

Liberal application of coming-of-age themes/The Power Of Friendship

,,,,,Hm, I think to myself. That sure is something that feels more familiar to the way a shonen is structured than how a western supernatural teen drama is usually structured.

Scott in particular is an archetype that feels very foreign to the landscape of the western supernatural drama at the time. Protagonists of those types of shows were rarely as good and pure and kind as Scott is, and I think it's a big reason why so much of the audience didn't know what to do with him at first and instead attached to Stiles (who is gray-moral and sarcastic and would not feel out of place in a show like spn or btvs) (yes yes I know the sterek thing is also a big reason but go with it for a second here). However, Scott is NOT an archetype that would feel foreign to Shonen Jump at the time, particularly in an era where Naruto was still ruling the world.

Honestly, the whole cast of characters feels out-of-beat with a 2010s Western supernatural drama. The dynamic of the main cast in early seasons — Pure of Heart-Dumb of Ass hero, Tragic Cold and Competent foil (Derek basically playing the role of Sasuke here, lol), Powerless Childhood Friend, Love Interest with a Badass Weapon to Hide Her Vulnerability — all feels much more familiar with the tropes of a shonen (something like Shaman King specifically jumps to mind) than something that would show up in The Vampire Diaries. In Western supernatural dramas, you usually had a Snarky-Angry Hero, Tragic Brooding Love Interest, Concerned But Useless Friend/Sidekick.

,,,,,,Tbh, in a standard western teen drama, the Derek character would have been Scott's love interest. Which. Honestly, what the hell, now I want that, that sounds like an awesome show. Probably better than the Teen Wolf we got.

Oh. Also, there's a hot murder uncle. which is for-sure an anime thing.

ALSO-also, there are kitsune in this show for one season for like no reason because they're never mentioned again and vanish in the next season which happens WAY MORE THAN YOU THINK IT WOULD in this DUMB BAD NONSENSE SHOW —

clears throat. nevertheless. My thesis:

1: At the time it came out (2011), Teen Wolf was structured more like a shonen than a western supernatural teen drama. 2: That is part of the reason why fans had weird reactions to it — they were expecting one genre and it gave them another one, which a lot of the audience likely wasn't that familiar with. 3: this whole show is batshit bonkers.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk. *bows.*

[mannatea]

Break Open the Sky, a Tales of Symphonia ‘fic (Chapter 5)

Current Word Count: 35,756 Summary: What kind of “Hero” of Regeneration would she be to leave an infant to fend for itself? Someone had to have left it here for a reason. The question was, of course, why? But as she lifted the little thing carefully into her arms, the motion reminding her of nights so far in the past, now, the why seemed almost tragically clear: this baby was of mixed blood. Chapter Summary: It's sailin' time. RIP. Also, Regal finally shows up. Pairing/Characters: Raine, Original Characters, will also feature Genis, Regal, and Sheena. Endgame is Regal/Raine. Extra Info: This is technically an Accidental Baby Acquisition story, but I liken it more to “Doorstep Baby” literature because it sure ain’t cute. Rating: Mature, for themes. Genre: Eventual romance, gen, family, character study.

The title is the link to Ao3 for Chapter 5! If you read it please feed me a little comment. I love you x5. 🤍🤍🤍🤍🤍

Lots of notes this time, specifically regarding the mechanisms of healing as I'm writing them in this story! You can find them under the cut:

I imagine since Altamira is a resort town, most passenger ships that travel there are probably also selling the boat ride as part of the Experience (and are therefore kind of a luxury). Yes, this is me forcing worldbuilding into this story come hell or high water. I’m very aware that Regal could have put his friends on a list to ensure they can actually come and visit him in style and comfort, but let’s just say his mind has been too busy to consider doing that with the ships since he did consider the hotels.

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The Mechanisms & Cost of Healing

This chapter gets a bit more into the cost of healing, in particular healing oneself. I sort of view self-healing in a separate camp from regular healing, just because I feel like the mechanics do differ.

Huge obvious note: healing hurts. Getting healed hurts. Healing yourself hurts. Forcing muscle or bone back together, rearranging things, sealing skin closed: getting healed causes pain.

So the steps of healing are something like this:

•Call up the mana needed, where mana is a specific type of energy. Calling the mana up to make it “usable” has a cost, which, in this case is just regular energy. You could think of this almost like any kind of “prep work” you might prefer to do in advance of a task, like stretching before going for a run. You can simply rip the mana out to use in an emergency, but it would never be recommended and could have unintended consequences.

•Focus

•Speak an incantation. For those who play games like WoW, you could consider this in a similar vein as “cast time” spells. In the case of healing in Symphonia, if the incantation is broken for any reason (stammered word, shattered concentration), the spell does not “cast” and the mana that has been drawn up to use falls back down again. When this happens, a small portion of the mana is wasted and the healer has to go back to the first step and call up the mana again. (As you can imagine, many failed attempts just ends with an exhausted healer and nothing healed.)

•Normally when healing someone else, maintaining focus is not very difficult (provided it’s not an active battlefield & the healer is not under attack or suffering from a dire injury themselves). The patient might be in a lot of pain, but if the healer isn’t they can just focus on healing in most situations.

•That said, when it comes to a healer healing themselves, they are not only trying to focus, they’re also causing themselves pain, resulting in concentration being extremely difficult and trying, depending of course on the severities of their injuries. You could think of this as an extreme version of trying to cauterize your own wound or setting your own broken leg.

In the case of Raine’s shoulder, it took her so long to get to it because she knows the cost to heal it is so high. The potential of ending up in a deficit of energy and mana from attempting to heal it when she’s already at a low point is likely, and that’s not something she’s willing to risk. She has children to look after and protect right now.

Also, when Raine enters that intensive healing stage where she just blocks everything out to focus on speaking the incantation: it’s more or less a literal disassociation state. I won’t get into it in this story (it’s slated for the sequel), but that is not something every magic user is capable of, and certainly not every healer.

--

Despite the fact that I have a similar fear of water, Raine’s phobia wasn’t the easiest thing in the world to write. Actually, it was straight-up unsettling. Knees weak palms are sweaty kind of stuff. Cool. Hated that for Raine and I hate it for myself.

Part of me feels like I cheated by skimming over her ship travels, but I don’t think it would have been very interesting to get a play by play of someone so deeply afraid. It’s worth noting that I also very very badly did not want to avoid or steer clear of the reality that Raine would have to deal with on such a long trip. It’s not pretty. She’s an absolute wreck who can’t even help herself, let alone do anything for the children she’s supposed to be caring for. IMO it’s important that this was shown.

--

I’m literally obsessed with the idea that Raine keeps her hair the exact same style from when she was 11 just in the desperate hope that if she finds her mother again, she’ll be recognized, though this was mostly unintentional and not really something she was doing consciously (too afraid to examine her actual feelings on the subject, so it just ended up habit to keep it that way). In this story, after she is “rejected” by her mother in Exire, she starts growing it again, so her hair has probably grown a fair amount by this story (though I do imagine hers grows slowly).

The lullaby in Raine’s dream is a, uh, very creatively translated Nuku Nuku Nurmilintu. (I am hiding from my Finnish friend who may want to pummel me for this unforgivable behavior.) Instead of “grassland bird” I used “meadow-bird” because I think it has a sweeter ring to it. I looked at a few translations but none of them shifted well into English wholesale so I had to get creative. Check out the actual lullaby for a lovely experience, though!

--

And yes! Finally, Regal has arrived. We don’t get into his perspective in this chapter, and things are a bit awkward, but…eh. Meeting someone you have a slightly awkward history with in public with three more children than they knew you had is, um…probably just not the smoothest experience. Poor Raine. Thank goodness Regal knows how to be polite and patient and wait for answers.

--

There aren't really any new OCs in this chapter so no need to even do a rollcall! (Thank goodness.)

Thanks again for reading! If you check out the story I'd love a comment. 🤍

[theblueescapist]

Final Fantasy XVI

I have just finished the game, that I started in July after I finally managed to get a PS5 (yes, I'm slow).

Random comments below the cut

The Good

Yes, favourite character is Dion, obviously, but I was surprised by the tiny margin he has for me over...Clive. That I like Clive more than Joshua was also a surprise.

Dion is just...the best?? He is so awesome?? I fail to understand how Squeenix produced such awesomeness?? He's just so magnificent?? Clive may be the protagonist, but Dion is the one who's coded as the (tragic) hero of this game. And yes, he died, but Clive dies too, I don't think it's fridging the gays in his and Terence's case (yes, I am aware that Terence is technically not listed as dead after Twinside got absorbed into Origin, but what exactly do you think is the cause of Dion's desperation when learning from Clive what happened to the city he recently sent his lover to?????); also, the other two gays survived, so that's something at least. Dion is just an unbelievable character with a fantastic arc, I was waiting for Squeenix to stumble with him, and was so pleasantly surprised when it didn't happen. I would have liked to see more of his relationship with Terence, and more of Terence in general, because I do have some issues with the power imbalance in their relationship. They're adorable together, but Dion also has a lot of chemistry with Joshua, who he recognizes as his equal. Apparently in the Japanese version Terence is listed as The Love of Dion's Life (TM), but...I mean, I don't think I'm imagining there was something there, on Joshua's part, at least.

Clive is just...a solid mass of good? He's relentless without being cruel, caring without being overprotective. That he manages to learn to trust people again despite the entire shitshow of his life after Phoenix Gate and before Cid, is saying everything about him. Also, he's just...a gentle person, with very few hangups, and those mostly get resolved. I think that he didn't set out for Origin with the intention to die there like Dion did, he truly meant to come back if possible. He wasn't sure that he could, but he would have if he could have. That's why it's such a sad blow for him when he realizes his body is going to give up on him after all. Yet he doesn't hesitate, because that's not who he is. I do think he's dead, though; I actually don't understand how people can claim otherwise after that ending. Yes, we don't see his whole body turned to stone, and something could have happened to revive him after Jill realizes he died. But. He was meant to write that book, Harpocrates wanted him to; since it ends up being Joshua who writes it, instead, I don't think he made it. Besides, the only person who could have revived him was perhaps Joshua himself, if Clive handed him back some magic besides healing his body, and we know that Joshua can heal flesh, but not that he can turn people back from being stone. I don't think it's possible for Clive's death to be retconned in a DLC in a logical way either.

(Sidenote: I love Noctis more than Clive, but I do believe Clive is the better protagonist, and arguably the better person. The two timeskips work in Clive's favour, because he was given the time to grow as a person. Noctis spends his single timeskip alone, and had no such luxury. Although they both sacrifice themselves for the good of the world, Clive got to live the life that Cid gave him, while Noctis totally lost those ten years --"grant [...] one more day inside this life" indeed.)

Joshua is lovely too, but we never see him struggle and resolve his personal issues like we do for Clive and Dion, we always witness him having resolved them already, and that makes it more difficult for me to relate to him. I just adore how much he and Clive love each other, though, it's so nice to see other types of love being validated so much in any media form. Joshua would have totally been the playboy character had this been a different game genre. I do believe he loves Jote; but he 1000% has something going on for Dion, too. Clive knows Joshua feels something important for Dion, he wouldn't have made his condolences to Joshua upon Dion's death otherwise. Also, Joshua is even more well adjusted than his brother, possibly because he at least was actually loved by their mother.

I didn't believe I could love another Cid as much as Raines, but okay, this one got me. ^_____^ And if the whole Benedikta stuff had been handled better, I actually think I'd have loved him more than Raines, but as it is, they're on equal footing. He's just such a fun character that his depth is totally unexpected. What a role model.

Uncle Byron is love!!!!!!!! The game improves SO MUCH after he's introduced. He's just a ray of sunshine.

Three over four of the most badass NPCs are women, and one of them is a madam in a brothel. It's so nice to see female characters with real agency, and they are so different from each other too! Martha with her pan was so iconic?? And Isabelle was so much better as a diplomat (and as a person in general) than stupid Quinten. And Eloise was smart and tragic, I hated that she got the short end of the stick.

Most of the scenery is so fucking gorgeous

The Bad

All the most powerful dominants belong to men, and female main characters are generally sidelined. Shiva is technically the first boss, but not really. Jill just gives her up to Clive because she loves him. Jill had the potential to be an iconic character like Yuna, and instead she got deliberately benched (read the interviews). Did they think that she would eclipse Clive or something if they gave her more screen time and developed her more than her extra short arc? That's like, not having faith in Clive as a character. I mean, we got more quests for Mid than for Jill, there's clearly something wrong there. Why do we never find out what happens to Lady Marleigh? Don't tell me Jill just left her in the Ironblood's hands without even a second thought! Benedikta is the first real boss for a reason, Garuda is a joke. Benedikta is probably the worst-handled character in the entire game, while she could have been a solid villain like Anabella.

It irritates me so fucking match that elemental magic has no place in this game!!!! If there's a Bomb and I'm freezing it, you need to have me make more damage, FFS!!!!

Why is called "party" when I can't control party members?? Playing as Jill or Cid would have rocked. At least we got to play as Joshua a couple of times, but it really sucks that XVI followed in FFXV's footsteps on this matter.

(this is just a pet peeve of mine) Why is Leviathan "lost"????? Lost where????? I want my favourite element!!!!

The Ugly

I'm very glad the whole "Final Fantasy's answer to Games of Thrones" thing was mostly exaggerated, but I really could not stomach the sexual violence in this game. I couldn't stand it in FFXIV either, and seeing it make a comeback here soured me a lot. It was bad already with Benedikta, but... I'm sorry, but seriously. Child rapists in Final Fantasy is a huge squick for me, it's the one reason why I'll never love this game as much as some other ones. Yes, it's more explicit in the Japanese version, but what exactly do people think Jill meant when she told Clive what she expected would have happened to her if she hadn't awakened as a Dominant???? Jill was 13 at the time she was taken by the Ironblood. And the child they use as leverage against her was much younger. What do you think she would consider so abhorrent as to murderously literally skewer Imreann over it??? These horrifying things happen all the time in the real world, I don't need them to happen in the videogames I play as well.

[theyabridge]

003. I Know What You Did Last Summer

Brief Summary: I Know What You Did Last Summer, written by Lois Duncan and originally published in 1973, follows Julie James and three of her friends—Ray Bronson (her ex), Barry Cox (Ray’s best friend), and Helen Rivers (Julie’s best friend and Barry’s girlfriend) after a tragic accident that involved the four of them the summer before. The group kept the accident between themselves, but when an unknown person starts sending cryptic notes and magazine clippings in the mail insinuating that they know everything that happened, the four kids find themselves trying to figure out who is reaching out to them, and wondering if they’re really as safe as they thought they were.

YA & Adult Readers alike may enjoy: Modernization of the novel, and a shift in both younger and older perspectives.

Something that could appeal to younger and older audiences alike is the modernization and updates to the original novel. In an interview that Valerie O. Patterson had with author Lois Duncan titled, “Writing Books that Hold Up, from Pay Phones to Cell Phones: An Interview with YA Suspense Novelist Lois Duncan”, Duncan addressed the decision to update the original text of I Know What You Did Last Summer, stating that, “My editor at Little Brown was the one who decided to republish these books in trade book editions and asked me if I’d be willing to update them in ways that would make today’s young readers relate to them more easily. This primarily meant changing hairstyles, clothing (no more polyester pantsuits), and outdated slang and terms of endearment. Also I had to provide my characters with such things as computers, digital cameras, and cell phones. That was fun—like having a chance to rebirth my children and provide them with wings. The cell phones were a bit of a problem, because so many plots revolved around the endangered protagonist being unable to call out for help…No, I didn’t modify my characters or alter the plots. Those have held up surprisingly well over the years.” (Patterson 124-125). In other words, since the original novel was set in the 70’s, Duncan made the decision to update her text to better reflect a more modern audience, and that while a lot of that was aesthetics and technology of the time, the main characters and plot lines of the story are generally the same to what she had originally written. I think while the slight modernization of the novel is meant to appeal to a younger audience that didn’t quite grow up when the original work was released to make the text more accessible, the changes made to the novel don’t feel too out of place or unfamiliar for an older audience. (To be completely honest, I hadn’t noticed the change until halfway through and even when I was made aware of the modernization of the text, it didn’t really alter how I read the second half of the book).

However, if some older readers aren’t a fan of the modernization of the novel, I think an older audience could potentially instead enjoy the chance to get into another adult’s head within YA fiction, and this novel specifically. A lot of the YA fiction I had read up until this point was strictly from a younger adult’s, or group of young adults’, point of views. It was rarely, if ever, that a reader was actually able to get inside an adult’s head for a change, but I think Lois Duncan does a terrific job of breaking away from this norm. Even though the majority of the novel is centered around the main group of kids and the chapters shift between their own perspectives and internal monologues, we do get a chapter centered solely around the parents of these children, most notably that of Julie’s mom. Having an adult perspective in a novel was really refreshing to see, and I almost wish we had more of it not only in this novel, but in the YA genre overall.

Final Thoughts/Concluding Review: Reading a young adult novel with an element of surprise or thrill was something that immediately drew me in with I Know What You Did Last Summer, and I think that’s a major aspect of the novel that I really enjoyed overall, since it didn’t quite feel like a typical coming of age story. With a mystery/thriller novel, and especially one intended for a younger audience, I think the overarching goal is to make sure the novel is able to keep the reader engaged as much as possible so that interest isn’t lost. There isn’t too much of the mystery that is revealed right away, which I think is what really is able to keep the reader hooked until the very end. Admittedly, the ending felt slightly predictable to me the more that I was able to put pieces together, but nevertheless, there were still elements to the big reveal that took me by surprise towards the end that I think make this novel still very much worth the read for anyone interested in a darker take on the YA genre.

[reverseblackholeofwords]

No pressure, but do you think you would write something for in space with markiplier or are you officially retired(tm) from mark egos content? Ik I'd read a new story if you felt like writing it.

I wouldn't be opposed to writing a story if some inspiration sparked! I really enjoyed iswm and all the nuances that make it a very Mark kind of story, I think more than anything I want to get my grubby little english major hands on it and over analyze Mark's writing styles and motifs. There's such an oddly fatalistic sense of hope to his story-telling that I find really distinct and interesting. Actually I might just... do that now... I apologize in advance.

If we think back to the ending of wkm, it wrecked me emotionally. I remember being struck by how depressing it was, this sense that as soon as those characters entered that house there was no hope for them. They were going to be warped into these caricatures of themselves to become plot devices in a larger story that was out of their control. They lost Everything, even themselves. It's not *bad*, it's powerful in a way, but it's pretty hopeless. But, in the context of the greater story, it's a perfect way to begin.

Then there's freaking wmlw where we see how this spiral of nonsense and half-remembered stories has taken its toll on both Wilford and Abe. Will chooses to embrace the madness - as is crucial to his character and something I've always loved about him - and accepts it. It gives him his power and agency, it makes him a reality breaking disco dancing anomaly, and it's great. He's a tragic character who either doesn't know he's tragic or can't be bothered to care because he'd rather be having fun, and I Love that. Abe on the other hand, is genre aware and not only plays into it but is almost a slave to it, but when Will offers an alternative, at least for a while, Abe accepts a chance to step out of his role. It's the beginning of this idea that hope persists even in a world gone mad.

Damien, then, offers a much more... Violent approach to the same concept when Celine yeets an ax at Actor, and I love her for that. I think we all do. Celine tries to spare her brother of the knowledge of what's happened to them, and by doing so, she traps him in a similar way that Abe was trapped in wmlw. It's only when the dam breaks and it all comes flooding back (pun intended) that we see Dark take agency in a grim sort of hopeful(?) vendetta. It's a darker (heh) version of the tone set by wmlw, and it works for telling the story of our would-be villain. I like that it sets a contrast of how these characters respond to the hopelessness of wkm, and they are somewhat of opposing ends of the spectrum that we can measure our own response by later down the road.

Following that, ahwm seems the hardest to pin down. There was less of a solid story arc in that one as Mark was clearly trying to achieve a different goal with that project. It was his first big series backed by YouTube and needed to draw in a larger audience who might not have background knowledge of his prior storytelling projects, so it seems to stand alone as far as tone goes. Of course we get that hallway of all the wkm character portraits and then Dark does his usual monologuing, it introduces the idea of taunting our apparent freedom in the choices we are given, but they're all choices handed to us by Mark. I'll also mention Yancy and this concept of not wanting to be free. Of course it's played mostly as a joke, but I think it's probably one of the more on the nose metaphors for this overarching concept. But at this point, we've fully defined this concept of being relegated to a role within a story we don't have *real* agency in along with the choice of choosing to remain in that role or to break out, and that's the important part.

Because OH BOY iswm flips that on its head. I've watched part of Mark and Amy's watch-through/discussion of iswm (not all, i don't have that kind of time, so if anyone wants to fill me in on any important lore dumps mark gave, feel free), and I like that Mark made the point of forcing us to make our first decision alone. It hits the nail on the proverbial head that this project is about choice more than any other before it. Creating a better stream of storytelling by always driving us forward rather than forcing a restart every time we "die" is Genius, and was executed spectacularly in part one. Our choices are always thrown back at us, whether good or bad, the underlying message of "Don't give up" is beautiful when paired with the foreknowledge of previous stories.

Our role as Captain puts the weight of our decisions into start relief. "The universe is littered with the corpses of your failures" like calm down, edgelord, but also, yes, it is. Our choices matter because they effect the people around us within the story. The way that we meet Lady for the first time at the *end* of our story, the way that we see so harshly how our choices change them, that's forcing us to take responsibility for how we play the game with the role that we've been given. So it's not the "role" itself that's the bad guy, is it? Wilford is at peace with his role in all this, Abe hasn't changed when we run into him briefly, and our small glimpse of Dark sure seems in-character for him. It's not the role that's the problem, it's what you *do* with it.

So here's my big point. The thing that gets me, and most people I would assume, about iswm is the way Mark reacts throughout the story. He's our touchstone. We're used to this nonsense, same way Wilford is when we come across him, but he's accepted it, he's moved on. He offers us a break from the decision-making because he sees that as the kindest thing he can do. We're largely unaffected by the weirdness mostly because we're a viewer, outside of the story and with the ability to walk away at any time. But whether walking away or ignoring the choices, that's not how we save the day. You save the day by choosing to keep going and to hold on. Mark, on the other hand, has been going and going and going and failing all the time, the monotony of failure and loneliness, of being relegated to this fate of repeating this catastrophic loss, that's PAINFUL. It's poignant, and like every other character who has faced a similar issue, he breaks under the pressure.

But unlike wkm, unlike wmlw, unlike Damien, it doesn't *end* with the character breaking, compromising on their morals, or giving in to the madness of it all only to be continually swept along by a story that doesn't care, by choices that only make things worse. It ends with us holding on to Mark, putting an end to the cycle, and giving these characters a truly happy ending. It's so beautifully hopeful, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head since I saw the ending to part two. Genuinely, I cannot say enough about how much I love the storytelling in this project and what it says about the power of the choice to hold on.

TLDR: iswm is very good, and if given the opportunity, I will continue to rant about it. The world is a broken and depressing place, but we are not trapped in the story, we are free (and often chaotic) agents who can choose to keep going and holding on and I have to believe that if we do, something good will come of it.

Also, thank you anon for letting me get this rant off my chest!

[bukojuiice]

the way of the househusband — levi ackerman

ೃ pairing: (husband! levi ackerman x  ceo wifey! reader)

ೃ  There is the “ideal” nuclear family. The one composed of a working husband with a well-paying 9 to 5 job, loving housewife who cooks and cleans, and adoring children who do well in school. However, that idealization is looong gone. What about you and your family? You are the CEO of a Tech Start-up Company who ain’t no trophy wife, Your husband hails from the last line of Ackermans and who temporarily resigns from being a vice executive of your company (just because he doesn’t want to work with young, feeling philanthropist, and genius GenZers) to become a hands-on househusband, and then there’s your little daughter who has the most inquisitive mind and adventurous heart who idolizes her doting father in every shape, way, and form. A month’s absence in your home (due to a business trip) could lead to many many things. But, your husband randomly publishing a self-help book on parenting and being a househusband is not one of those things. 

ೃ genre and warnings: modern au, domestic fluff, baby au, husband au, 

ೃ  my nav  →  my aot masterlist

ೃ 4k words

ೃ Will be referring to hanji as “aunkling” (a cute nickname that some kiddos use to refer to their non-binary relatives <3) because there are no official non-binary terms for aunt and uncle! + your daughter with levi is named amelia and she is just the most precious cinnamon roll

It’s done. 

The Business Trip is finally over.

A long and painful month of no hugs and playdates with your little princess, Amelia and no time to be pampered with love and affection from your husband, Levi was finally over!

Sometimes, you wonder how you were even able to survive these long-ass trips and conferences. Sure, these month-long trips only happened once a year, but the thought of Amelia getting older and having to miss a day of seeing her grow up and discover the world, really hurt you as all mothers would. Video Calls were enough to satisfy you and give you happy hormones even for just a short while, but still- the longer you’re not with them, the more the yearning lengthens until you’re just riddled with endless thoughts of wanting to get home as soon as possible.

First, let’s set things straight: You are the CEO of a Tech Start-up company who was born into a middle-class family and rose her way up to success. It’s as cliche as it gets but hey! Living a life as if you were in a romantic comedy was the best compliment you’ve ever gotten. 

Along with that, as far as rich families in rom-coms and coming of age movies go, are they all dysfunctional in reality? Not really. Or at least you and Levi promised each other not to end up like that. The Rich Girl meets Poor Boy (with a tragic backstory) cliche however? Yea, that’s a pretty accurate way to describe your love story. Meeting the love of your life in a Coffee Shop is actually pretty common and happens to a lot of people apparently. When Erwin Smith, Levi’s best friend (who is too smart and self-aware to fit the role of a rom-com sidekick by the way) approaches your table to ask if he and Levi could sit with you. (Because of all the days the cafe would be packed, it would be that day.) You said yes of course, and Erwin began oversharing details about the raven-haired man and you were all too invested in learning more about him anyway. Levi grew up in the orphanage after his mother had died and his father was the biggest asshole on the planet for never showing his face, he had to fend for himself after he outgrew the foster system. Starting out as an espionage in an illegal underground gambling empire to a bookkeeper at the Smiths’ bookshop. (Although this is a story for another day)  

Internally swooning over his pretty eyes and resting bitch face...it didn’t take long until the two of you fell in love and... the rest was history!

You come home to your lavish yet homey apartment in 21 West End Avenue Manhattan to be surprised by your father-daughter duo absolutely knocked out on the couch. Amelia was snuggled up to her father, her feet on his lap and a sleeping position you could not possibly comprehend, a Disney movie playing in the background, and both of them were wearing matching Minion onesies whilst yours was folded neatly on the coffee table just waiting to be worn by you when you got home. 

It was a rare sight to see and you can’t help but just stare lovingly at the wonderful scene before you. Not only was it rare to see Amelia asleep before seeing you (or in the case of your business trips, during your daily video calls with them) but it was also rare to see your husband sleeping so soundly and his insomnia not kicking in. 

Amelia hears your footsteps, her eyes are still shut as she tries to predict what you will do next. She finally assesses when she will make her move and surprise you when you place another fleece blanket on top of them and plant a kiss on both of their temples. your daughter’s eyes suddenly flutter open. Her eyes beaming and glowing off the same light that twinkled in her father’s as she jumps off the couch, making sure not to wake up Levi.

“MOMMY!” She screams in the most quiet volume her cute voice could muster. She runs up to you and envelops you in a tight hug, jumping up and down as she does so. “I missed you Mommy! I missed you soooo much! How was sandbox in K-korea!? Was there a lot of sand!? Did you have a lot of pwaymates there!?”

You giggle at your daughter’s enthusiasm, combing your fingers through her hair. “Lili, Sandbox is like the Silicon Valley of Korea. It isn’t necessarily a sandbox like in a playground, baby.”

“OOOH! JUST LIKE SIWICON VAWWEY!” She chirps, tightening her hug and reaching for your hand and squeezing it. “AH WAIT!” She gently pushes you away and makes a beeline to her room. “ME AND DADDY HAVE A SURPRISE FOR YOU! BUT CLOSE YOUR EYES FIRST OWKAAY?!” She calls out from her room and you shout back a “yes!” to her in between your giggles, unable to contain the sudden rush of serotonin your daughter had given you from her simple yet adorable antics.

Another trope that you can debunk is that rich moms can be a hands-on parent too! After your maternity leave ended and when Amelia had finally reached her toddler years, you absolutely made sure that you were going to take care of her every second, minute, hour and day of your life. As soon as she turned two, she became the inquisitive, smart and ever so curious little girl you and Levi had always hoped for. She had your (h/c) hair and Levi’s icy yet warm and loving milky grey eyes. If the color of Levi’s reminded you of dark and stormy clouds, Amelia’s was gleaming. Like that of the clouds after a terrible storm. She was an absolute blessing and although you weren’t a perfect mother, (spoiling her more than you should) Levi was an amazing father. Growing up without parents was tough for him and he was going to make sure that Amelia is going to have an amazing childhood and be surrounded by the love of two parents that he never had and never got to experience. 

You always and will forever have trust in Levi. There has never been a day where you doubted him. Despite the impressions and assumptions that people have of him. How he was cold, scary, and even calculating. But, you are always quick to shut down those rumors. They don’t know the Levi Ackerman behind the cold and mighty front he shows. He is a man who has gone through so much and yet has so much love and care to give. How he notices and remembers the littlest details, how he never takes anything for granted and how he loves and cherishes everything so wholeheartedly.

When Amelia turned six, you sadly had to go back to work formally. Right timing too because your genius (with very himbo tendencies) younger cousin, Eren, was about to be part of your start-up company and he had a lot of amazing plans that had to come into fruition. Even bringing in a group of his own friends (who all graduated in MIT by the way!) who are willing to contribute so many amazing ideas and hackathons that were just waiting to happen.

The entrance of these youthful and hopeful genius entrepreneurs also brought about the temporary exit of your very own husband from your very own company. Apparently, working with newly graduated Gen Zers (as a millennial) was too much for him. They were nice and they were going to be a very integral part of the company. But, the boomer inside Levi can’t just can’t keep up with this sudden surge of energy and youthfulness within the higher-ups. It was also a great opportunity for him to take care of Amelia even more. So, you didn’t stop him from doing so! 

It’s been a year since he temporarily resigned and became an official-unofficial househusband. Or as your best friend Hanji likes to put it, You are the Girl Boss and he is the Male Wife. Amelia is now 7 years old and she’s currently taking Ballet classes (Levi picks her up during the weekdays, and the both of you pick her up on the weekends) and has developed a hyperfixation over Sanrio Characters and the Disney movie, Frozen. She was growing up to be a wonderful girl and you just can’t wait to hear what she and Levi had done during your absence.

She skips her way back to you, a book tightly clutched in her hands. “SURPRISE!” Amelia gingerly places a book on your hand. You open your eyes and tilt your head in question at the piece of literature she had just given you as you read the title aloud.  “The Way of the House Husband… written by Levi Ackerman.” Your eyes shift to a little circle on the lower side of the cover,  “The husband of (Y/N) Ackerman, the CEO of Survey Corp Tech…!?” 

“Daddy and I made a book while you were away!” She claps her hands together and grabs the book back from you, turning it to the first page. “See there’s even a dedication! To (Y/N) and Amelia! The two brightest stars in my galaxy!”

“Oh that’s too cheesy. No way would your dad write something like this out of the blue, Lili.” You scoff, shaking your head in disbelief. Your daughter looks at you with downcast eyes while you were still trying to process that your husband literally just wrote a whole-ass book while you were away. “Who helped publish this so quickly, Amelia?”

“Uncle Erwin of course!” She’s frowning for one second and now she’s beaming at you again. “Please please read it mommy! Me and daddy worked really really hard on it!” She taps the hardbound cover of the book in rhythms. “This is the Amelia Edition! Daddy said he cut out some stuff so that it would be okay for me to read and for me to give to you once you get home! It’s my come back home gift for you mommy!” She moves the book to your lap and hops up next to you on the loveseat that you were sitting on. Before you know it, Amelia is resting her head on your shoulder and coaxing you to start reading to her like it was a bedtime story. 

You clear your throat and hold her by the waist so that she can feel more secure in her seat. “Okay… okay… let’s begin shall we? In a kingdom far far away…”

“That’s not how the book is like mommy! Read it properly like the way daddy did!”

“I was just joking, honey. Let’s get started. Rule #1 of the House Husband is…”

Rule #1: Fathers, be good to your children. You are the weight of their world.

“One thing I learned as soon as I was at home practically 24/7 is that your child will be more cautious and weary of you. They will observe you because they look up to you. They will watch your every move, follow you around, and will imitate whatever you say and whatever they hear from you. Talk to them, teach them things they need to know, support them in their hobbies, interests, and even if you have to be the extra princess in her tea party, do it.  The thing is, you will leave an eternal mark on the hearts of your children.”

Amelia got even more closer to Levi when he was finally stationed at home. Always grinning from ear to ear and boasting to her classmates how cool her dad was whenever he would pick her up from school. She was proud to tell them Levi’s heritage even if Amelia never got to meet her Grandma Ackerman and Grandpa Ackerman. When Levi would take her out for errands, may they be groceries, cleaning the house, baking, cooking, laundry, or just going on his morning jog, Amelia would be there to accompany him. In fact, she’s gone shopping with Levi so many times that she has memorized the brand names of cleaning detergent and bleach before she could even memorize the multiplication table.

 She’s even caught up with her father’s cynical sense of humor. And because of that, Levi had to tone down on his sardonic jokes around the little girl. Levi wasn’t necessarily physically affectionate but he does soften around Amelia as the little girl never fails to supply him with endless hugs and kisses on the cheek. She may be both a Mommy’s and Daddy’s girl, but the way she looks up to Levi is the kind of father-daughter bond that you hardly see in real life. She aspires to be like him. Even if there were times where she would be scolded by you both, (most especially Levi) she never took that against you.  She sees all the good and positive sides of your husband that others outside of your circle fail to see.

Rule #2: Let your children know that they have other “guardian angels” who they can rely on aside from their parents.

“My daughter has both my wife and I’s best friends to learn from or to look up to. Her kooky aunkling and her blunt uncle have become one of the most precious people in her life. Even the young ins working at Survey Corp Tech have become older siblings to her and get along with her so well. Remember that there will always be close relatives or friends who can and will help them when they lose their way. Let them spread sunshine and love to others.”

Whether it’s a regular trip to Coney Island or your monthly trips to Disneyland, Hanji or Erwin would totally tag along. Amelia absolutely loves and vibes with Hanji’s quirkiness so well. They would wear matching Mickey Mouse ears, ride the kiddie roller coaster that Amelia wanted to ride on a million times per visit, buy her all the ice cream and treats she wants (despite Levi’s warnings and the reprimanding that Hanji has to suffer from the both of you right after.) They just want Amelia to experience all the fun, the joy, and innocence of living in the moment. As a kid, it’s better if she sees how precious life is, how she should cherish it and that she doesn’t have to grow up so fast just yet. 

Erwin on the other hand, brought out Amelia’s intellectual side more. As soon as a new and critically acclaimed children’s book hit the shelves, you bet Amelia has a copy right away. Whenever Levi would take her to Erwin’s bookstore, she wanders around like it’s this huge mysterious archive that can only be accessed by her. The Adults section is forbidden, so were the cheap romance novels in the back, and the books written by youtubers. God forbid she read those. When her Uncle Erwin got her into reading Roald Dahl’s children’s books, you had to watch Amelia run around the penthouse with a little red ribbon tied on top of her hair, wanting to be referred to as Matilda, along with you and Levi having to pretend that she had telekinetic powers for 6 months straight. It was her cutest phase yet and you just know there were many more to come. 

There were also Eren and his friends who loved Amelia dearly whenever she came over to visit. Your little cousin refused to be called Uncle Eren and instead wanted to be called big bro, and in which Amelia happily complied. Whenever it was Amelia’s weekly “Visit Mommy at Work” day, she had her own room in your office where Eren and your other young associates would babysit her. In fact, they would actually take turns in babysitting at your condo whenever you and Levi went out for date night. Amelia was introduced to playing video games like Animal Crossing and Pokemon solely because of them (more specifically because of big bro Jean, big sis Sasha, and big bro connie.) They even ended up influencing her to watch anime when her big brother “Minmin” and big sis “Mimi” accidentally left the TV on and Amelia literally binge-watched half of the existing Studio Ghibli movies to this date. 

Rule #3: Your children will think that you are Superman or Iron Man. Make sure to act like them and never let them down by ruining their innocence and imagination.”

(A little note was attached to this page: Please don’t let Amelia read this. Read her a fairy tale instead while skimming through this.)

“It all started when my daughter found an entire encyclopedia on ancient and legendary family clans around the world. The Ackerman clan was on the very first page after the intro and she read through all 50 pages of it. The look of awe on her face when she read that her dad’s ancestors exhibit physical abilities much higher than the average human. In a 7 year old’s mind and vocabulary, that automatically translates to a superhero akin to that of Superman. 

Ever since then, My daughter has forced me to become more creative with doing very mundane tasks and chores. I pretend to have superpowers. Such as teleporting around the house whilst cleaning. I tell her to close her eyes or else my teleportation powers won’t work. Then when I cook in the kitchen and she watches me intently, I tell her that the salt and pepper have magical properties that only I can touch and hold because to her, at that moment, I was “Doctor Stwange.”

and one time, when I picked her up from school, she was babbling on about how she told her friends and playmates that she had two superhero parents she was very proud of. Then one of the other kids asked if I was a strong soldier who killed huge humanoid monsters using sharp blades. To which I replied that could have possibly happened in a different universe. Her hearty laughs and giggles whenever she sees me using my superpowers makes me anxious over the fact I have to tell her someday that my powers never existed.”

Whilst you were on your monthly trip, you and Levi would have private video calls whenever Amelia was finally put to bed. There, he told you about what happened in Amelia’s ballet classes that week and how the single mothers were more persistent than usual.

They could clearly see that Levi was not interested but apparently the fact that your husband waving his ring finger every single time someone approached him wasn’t obvious enough, apparently the fact that he was married made the risk even more worth it to these prying moms who had nothing better to do. It wasn’t until Amelia had enough and respectfully called them out by saying that his dad was married and he was never going to be interested in Karens (a slang word that she learned from Eren and friends) Since then, the invasion of parent to parent boundaries had finally stopped. Levi was very relieved and at ease whilst telling you the story yet you were laughing your heart out at the ingenious remarks of your very own daughter on top of the irresistible charm and looks of your own husband that made single mothers be damned. 

Rule #4: The most important rule of all: Love your spouse as you want your children to be loved in the future.

“Since my wife is on a business trip right now as I type this and she may or may not know that I had written this book for her to read when she comes home, my daughter came up to me a few days ago and told me how she missed her mom so much. The video calls we had every night were not enough to satisfy her for the remaining days her mother would be gone. She then proceeds to tell me that she loves the way I love (Y/N). My daughter loved how patient I was and how I supported her through every endeavor that her mother had ever thought up with that brilliant mind of hers. She mentioned how I was there for her through every success and failure, through hardships, difficulties and misunderstandings. My daughter was happy because I stuck with her mother through everything. All the pain, suffering, conflicts that we both experienced individually and as husband and wife. Little ears and little eyes are watching and observing the actions and sweet gestures of their parents. Make sure to remember that.”

“What is gravy (grief) if not love persevewing?” (persevering) My daughter had even recounted a quote from the Disney Marvel show, WandaVision just to prove a point to me. That was when I realized something and decided to list down a few things: 

1. The best lovers are the best of friends.

Levi’s relationship with you was rocky at first simply because the two of you didn’t have a lot in common. Your personalities clashed and the two of you could barely make things work in the beginning. He was always well-dressed, on time, and was very prim and proper. However, Levi was cold, strict, and unapproachable. You on the other-hand were quite the opposite. You used to arrive late, didn’t care too much about your style as long as you wore the appropriate outfit, but you were carefree, laidback and friendly. Having to set aside your differences was a process that required sacrifice, time, and effort. It took long and a lot of petty arguments before the two of you fully understood each other, accepted each other's faults and quirks, and became even closer. Both as friends and lovers. You and Levi treat each other not as just the “person I love and I’m married to for the rest of my life”, but also as a best friend for life. Soulmates

2. Their dreams are just as important as yours.

Levi’s dream was to open up a tea shop and start a family with you. That was all he ever wanted. The blissful simplicity of his in comparison to your techy and out of this world ambitions, goes to show how much they weigh as aspirations and wants in life. You have to value your significant other’s dreams and ambitions just as much as you highly value yours. No matter how hard or how simple they are, the both of you can achieve it with the help of each other. The only thing left in your agenda was to open up his long-awaited Tea Shop. You were about to surprise him with the plans of opening one up on the day of his birthday, and you just can’t wait for that day to finally come.

3. You have to let them be free.

Levi absolutely knew what he was getting into when he met you. It was love at first sight when he met you, He drunkenly admitted that one time when he’s had too much champagne on your friday date night. He knew that you were an adventurer. A wandering soul who had a goal and a purpose set in stone. He always knew you were going to reach greater heights and he knew that you would never leave him behind and would always have him go on a ride. He’s always known about your capabilities and your potential and he didn’t want you to stray away from that. And, if the time were to come that you had to leave him behind to soar greater heights, he’d understand that. He’d always let you be free and make sure you don’t fly too close to the sun. That was just how selfless Levi is. The thing is, he knows you would do the same for him. It was a perfect balance. 

4. It is an honor to love and to be loved by them.

To be wrapped in the arms of someone who feels like home or has become the definition of home, To be stargazing with on a chilly summer night in where you talk about your future and your plans, To be sharing a cup of coffee or tea with in the morning and begrudgingly dancing with you against his will, To be watching your child playing in her room and do nothing but look adoringly at the most precious soul to have ever been produced by your encompassing love, and to be spending the rest of your life with someone who has done nothing but be with you through every pivotal moment in your life was such an honor. 

It is an honor to be loved by Levi, as he is honored to be loved by you. 

“...The end.” You close the book with a deep but contented sigh. Tears were welling up in your eyes and you’re trying your best not to break down in front of Amelia. 

“Mommy… are you crying?” She tilts her head in inquiry. “Is it because you’re tired from work?”

“No. baby. These are happy tears, Lili. Don’t worry.”

Before you could speak up once more, you notice Levi had slowly sprung up from the couch, and began to stretch his arms. His eyes widen when he sees you from the opposite couch. “(Y/N)... you were supposed to arrive at 6 AM right? Amelia and I were supposed to pick you-”

Amelia opens her mouth to speak as she jumps down from the couch and crawls up to sit next to Levi. “Daddy! I showed Mommy the book you wrote! She loved it! Right, Mommy?”

“You did?” Your husband perks up from his seat, clearing his throat. “T-that’s not the entire book yet by the way. We had to give back the original copies to Erwin for reprinting. The self-help book is currently rising up the charts to be a New York Times Best Seller.” 

Before Levi could properly react, you move to the free space on the couch next to him. Holding his hand and gazing into his forlorn yet loving eyes, you muttered. “Love, that’s amazing. I’m really really proud of you. Next time though, please do tell me that you’ve written a self-help book and dethroned all those mommy authors from the bestselling charts.” 

Levi stifles a laugh, stroking your thumb and bringing you and Amelia closer to him for warmth. “I will. I will.” 

Amelia looks up at the two of you, squeezing out of the sandwich, so that you and Levi can have your quality time with each other. “Goodnight Mom! Goodnight Dad!” She approaches the two of you so that she can be given her nightly kiss on the cheek as she retreats to her room. 

“What if I write a novel too?” You joke, snuggling up to Levi, your husband wrapping his arm around you. “The title could be… The way of the Wife boss?” 

“That could be a good sequel. A shared book universe. Then, Amelia could continue the collection when we’re old and sour as hell.” Levi mused.

“Pfft. I guess only time will tell. I love you Levi.”

“I love you too (Y/N).”

[n0bamak1s]

lazy days - maki zenin x reader

request: “Could you maybe do a maki x reader fluff? Like maybe just a lazy day playing video games or something like that.” - @mvddison99

summary: after you shut off her alarm clock so she can get some rest, maki reluctantly agrees to a lazy day with you, and ends up enjoying it much more than expected. (genre: domestic-ish fluff, slice of life)

warnings: some swearing but it’s mostly just pure fluff!

word count: 2.7k

a/n: i did NOT plan to make it this long lol i’m just a sucker for writing maki! i didn’t really explicitly state what the reader and maki’s relationship is so it can be read as an established relationship or not depending on what you like! i had a ton of fun writing this so hopefully y’all like it! :)

maki zenin doesn’t do ‘lazy days’. not willingly, at least.

when you’d told inumaki of your plan to shut off her alarm clock to get her to sleep in and take a day off, he couldn’t help thinking you must have some kind of death wish to do that. you’d argue that you were staging an intervention in the name of self care. he knew the reason you’d gone to him with your idea was because he couldn’t talk any sense into you.

he also knew that you actually just wanted maki to take a day off so you’d have an excuse to hang out with her in your pajamas all day.

despite the countless times gojo would use a day off as an incentive during your missions, when you finished you’d always be greeted by the same sheepish smile and excuse as to why your day off would be pushed back. for a grown man, he sure was childish when it came to planning stuff. in contrast to the groans of disappointment that came in response from you, inumaki and panda, maki never seemed phased by the extra days you’d spend sparring in the blistering sun. while gojo moved his hands wildly as he apologized, she’d simply shrug and swing her weapon of choice over her shoulder with a bored expression on her face. gojo always seemed relieved when she’d interrupt his plea for forgiveness to a group of teenagers to ask him when the next mission was.

over the past two weeks or so, you’d begun to notice the semblance of exhaustion around maki, one you weren’t even sure she was aware of. her glasses emphasized the purple tinted bags lining her eyes, and her nose was dusted with a sunburn that was oddly reminiscent of that momo girl from kyoto. they were subtle changes in the way she carried herself as well, in the way her shoulders slumped ever so slightly when she rested the wooden ends of her weapons on them. it was such a slight difference that it seemed only you could know so quickly.

so it’s not hard to imagine the joy that flashed across your face when you realized your plan in unplugging her school issued alarm clock had been successful. before then, you’d only woken up before maki once, due to an early morning mission with inumaki. that day, when surprise flashed across your face at the sight of maki awake at just 6 a.m on a saturday, now seemed a contrast to your current state. the clock read 10 a.m as you were interrupted from mulling over your breakfast with inumaki and paves with the sound of steps shuffling against the floor, followed not soon after by maki, clad in baggy plaid pants and a loose fitting tee shirt. you watched as she stretched her arms above her head, making her shirt ride up slightly from the waistband of her pants. a part of you felt as if you’d gotten lucky to see her in that moment, with her green hair cascading past her shoulders, and her yet to be brushed bangs messy as they slightly masqueraded her eyes like a sheepdog overdue for a trim. as she rubbed her eyes into focus, her gaze landed on you, clearly trying to stifle a smile for whatever reason.

“what’re you so happy about?” her voice was raspy as she straightened her posture.

oh, you were definitely lucky to see her like this.

“sleep well?” you raised an eyebrow with a teasing tone. she could practically hear the smug grin threatening to stretch across your face. had it not already been obvious who the culprit was, that would’ve been a dead giveaway of the way her stolen batteries from her alarm clock were collecting dust on your bedside table. she sent a lazy glare your way, but there was clearly no malice behind it.

“if i say i did, will you leave me alone?” her tone was almost playful as she stepped towards you, bending her knees to be at eye level with you while you sat. she probably didn’t notice that she wasn’t nearly as intimidating with her old pajamas and messy hair.

“no can do.” you no longer held shame in the catlike grin on your face. “gojo is finally letting us have that day off he always promises, and i’m not letting you use some excuse about being ‘too busy with training.’” those last few words were spoken with a monotone infliction in a weak attempt to poke fun at her almost robotic training schedule.

a roll of her eyes, but she made no point to move from her position. when she crouched down to your sitting form, her eyes remained focused on you despite the sleepiness still swimming in them. your noses were mere inches apart.

“and if i do?”

“i already told gojo to lock up the weapons, plus everyone else is occupied with relaxation.” you feigned sheepishness.

“oh noooo, i’m sure it’d be impossible to make it past his advanced security system.” her voice oozed of sarcasm and her head tilted slightly, a smirk daring to sneak past her lips.

the staring match you were unaware you’d been putting so much effort into was interrupted by a groan from inumaki. he made a face of disgust in your direction as you both turned to face him. if he could, you were sure he’d mutter something annoyedly about you two needing to get a room. your face contorted to send some sort of distorted glare his way as he got up to leave the room.

maki cleared her throat awkwardly, now acutely aware of the distance (or lack thereof) between your faces, courtesy of inumaki.

“by the way, if you don’t take a break, gojo says he’ll just make you take one during our next mission!” the grin on your face stretched almost cartoonishly at the dejected look in response to your declaration.

she was standing now. “i’ll do it, but only because you’ve already set my day back by a few hours, and so i don’t miss anything important later.” though you didn’t miss the corners of her mouth turning up as she averted her gaze.

to her surprise, you let out a soft sigh of relief in response. “thank god, my last resort would have been to make you go to training with the kyoto students instead.” she cringed wordlessly in response as she pulled a cup of yogurt from the fridge.

“what do you want to do so bad that’s got you so pushy anyways?” she sat with her legs spread apart as she ate her breakfast.

a mischievous gleam danced across your face. “well i was cleaning out my dorm the other day, and i may or may not have found my copy of mario kart.” your voice was triumphant, as if you’d just found the cure to a disease.

she looked thoroughly unimpressed in contrast to you holding down heaps of excitement. “never played it.”

your gasp of shock felt as if it could have woken up the whole school.

“maki…” your voice sounded accusatory, like a parent saying that they’re not mad, ‘just disappointed.’

“well it’s not like the zenin clan is exactly known for their expertise on video games, are they now?” she spoke matter-of-factly.

“and they’re clearly not known for having fun either, now you’d better eat up so i can beat your ass.” your competitive tone seemed to awaken a rivalry within maki, whose eyes suddenly became sharper with determination. you stifled a chuckle at the drive that came from your simple teasing.

“i wouldn’t get so confident just yet, no offense but i don’t think you’d be that hard to beat.” she teased, matching the mischievousness in your eyes, as she finished her cup of yogurt.

“oh it’s on maki!”

as you bounced down the hall to your dorm with maki in tow following breakfast, you took note of panda walking by, who seemed to do a double take of maki. she met his gaze, once again trying to look threatening despite her cozy attire. panda seemed unaffected by her glare, simply sending you a sneaky thumbs up, not going unnoticed by her.

“did everyone know about your little plan?”

“not everyone, per say. if i told megumi he’d have been a total buzzkill and told you.”

“oh how tragic that would have been.” without looking over your shoulder, you could tell she was rolling her eyes, but she did a bad job at concealing the smile that was evident in her voice.

“i know, where would you be without me?” you wiped fake tears from your eyes dramatically as you swung open the door to your dorm.

“not playing mario kart, that’s for sure.” she shrugged, feigning exasperation as she slumped on your bed. it was oddly domestic, this side of maki. it was the side of her with her hair undone, with her usual stiff uniform swapped for baggy pajamas, with her back flat against your rock solid dorm bed as she stared at the ceiling, eyes glazed over. it crossed your mind that you’d like to see her like this more.

but in case you didn’t get that chance, you were determined to make this moment last.

after a few moments of annoyance at how slow your wii loaded, and annoyance from maki at your complaining about it, considering that thing was clearly on its last legs, you were met with the flashing of the mario kart title screen. maki sat up to be met with your face brightening into a smile, making it hard for her to stop the matching one on her face. she found it hard not to get excited from the enthusiasm you had about this game, it gave her a sense of comfort that made her feel like she’d never have to worry about battling a curse again.

you handed her a controller, your fingertips brushing against her hand as you did so. her eyes flickered to yours with an impish delight to them.

“you’re going down.”

“oh?” you raised an eyebrow as you turned to click through character selections, shamelessly feeding into her competitive streak. after scrolling through the characters just long enough to annoy maki, you decided you’d play yoshi. she let out an over exaggerated sigh of relief when you’d finally decided, before turning her attention to do the exact same thing.

“rosalina, huh?”

maki glanced at you, before averting her eyes back to the screen. “what can i say? she’s hot.”

you put a hand to your heart dramatically. “oh maki, how you wound me. sorry i can't be her.” your little act was eerily similar to how the first years would act whenever there was even the possibility of megumi interacting with a girl.

“you’ve been spending too much time around gojo.” she scoffed at your antics while you waited for the crappy old wii to load the selection screen for tracks.

should i choose rainbow road just to fuck with her?

spoiler alert: you absolutely did choose rainbow road just to fuck with her.

you knew she’d never played before, so even if you did win, it’s mostly because you chose the most difficult track. but the competitive side of you didn’t seem to care. before starting the game, you moved so you sat next to maki on the bed, parallel to the tv screen. you guys sat shoulder to shoulder, yet maki still seemed totally relaxed.

“you’re going down.” she smirked, turning to face you, the second time that day her face was just inches from yours.

“i’d like to see you try and beat me, newbie.” you tilted your head towards her, a smug look painting your face as you leaned over to place your hands over hers, instructing her of the basics as you guided them over the buttons and joysticks of the controller. after all, it would be just cruel to make her go in completely clueless.

“thanks.” her eyes remained focused on her hands a few seconds after you’d removed yours from atop them, before her gaze travelled to meet yours. there was an uncharacteristically soft look on her face for just a moment, before she looked back to the screen. “but you’re gonna regret this when you eat my dust.”

“whatever you say, maki.” you muttered as the screen began to flash a countdown.

3…

2…

1…

START!!!

forget all that soft shit, you were gonna beat her ass.

your dorm room was filled with the sounds of the wii controller buttons being mashed, along with the background music of the game.

“SHIT!” you didn’t have to glance at her screen to know she’d swerved off the road and fallen, so you just smiled triumphantly in response.

when she was on the road again, you could feel her lean against your shoulder slightly as she turned. in your peripheral, you noticed how a few strands of green hair brushed against your shoulder as if it were yours. maki, on the other hand, seemed completely focused on winning the game, making her ignorant to how she practically leaned into you.

you were confident enough to know that you pretty much had this game in the bag as you kept your lead peacefully for quite a bit, that was until a certain smug looking girl next to you managed to score a blue shell.

“DAMN IT.” you watched as yoshi spun helplessly after being hit. “look at how sad he looks, you monster.” you glared ludicrously at her, to which she just snickered, but your feigned anger was quickly interrupted by the sound of the music speeding up.

FINAL LAP.

“already?” you were exasperated to see how close maki had gotten to you. looking to her, she remained with a determined look on her face, funnily enough, it was similar to the one she’d have while sparring.

you didn’t want to have to play dirty but…

ah, who were you kidding, you totally wanted to play dirty!

“hey, maki.” your voice was husky from strain of your cries of distress when you fell behind. you leaned into maki the same way she had earlier, with your leg practically on top of hers, and your head leaning oh so casually on her shoulder. she seemed to stiffen for a moment.

“what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

jackpot.

swerving with your controller, you’d managed to knock her rosalina straight off the track, giving you a clear path to the finish line. you knew that making her all flustered just to get ahead had to be some kind of cheating, but you couldn’t deny it was so worth it to see the way her face flushed from a mix of embarrassment and anger at losing.

when you reached the finish line, it was hard to contain the laughter that came bubbling up out of you. before you could help it, the repressed giggles turned into a full on belly laugh as you leaned onto her shoulder for support.

“you should’ve seen your face maki!” you managed to get out between laughs. she simply pushed you off of her, though it was clearly as soft as possible. she held onto your shoulder so you were forced to be at eye level with her.

she opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, you lifted your head to make eye contact, your mouth in a tight line as you tried to hold back more laughs.

“you’re pretty good for a newbie though, you know.” you leaned into her touch, too focused on her to tease her over the animation of yoshi with his gold trophy playing on the screen.

“yeah and you’re pretty good for a cheater.” she scoffed, but it only elicited more laughter from you, gripping on the hands she had on your shoulder for support.

she wanted to keep up her front of mock seriousness, but the way you melted into her in this moment left her no room for her mock anger.

it was rare that you saw maki zenin laugh, but in this moment, it just felt so natural to you. it seemed to rise up out of her, like a soda can being shaken up before opening, it came out unrestrained as her shoulders shook ever so slightly.

you’d have to make a note to get maki to laugh more often.

“so…” you finally composed yourself, leaning your head on her shoulder, she looked at you without an ounce of the surprise she held earlier, as if you guys did this all the time. “do you wanna play again?”

she grinned wolfishly. “hell yeah.”

[hamliet]

What Does It Mean to Save?

I keep seeing it said that Deku, Ochaco, and Shouto will “save” Shigaraki, Himiko, and Dabi, but that there will be no redemption and/or no survival for them. I’m truly not trying to vague these posts and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but literary criticism is fundamentally responsive so I’m writing this anyways.

I personally think that’s not BNHA’s definition of saving nor of redemption. So here, have a deep dive into literary tropes related to redemption, genre, and character arcs as they pertain to BNHA and the question of: what does it mean to save Shigaraki, Touya, and Himiko?

Before we begin, let me say that while we might be personally uncomfortable with redemption (there’s a redemption arc in BNHA I am personally quite uncomfortable with), that doesn’t inherently mean the narrative won’t go there. The key principle I’m operating on here is BNHA’s message that heroes save people. It’s held up as the highest ideal. 

So let’s talk redemption in BNHA-verse. With this guy, whose redemption arc I dislike in principle but accept as part of the story so don’t come for me stans and/or antis. I’m analyzing because it shows us what redemption means in BNHA-verse, whether or not that is satisfying to you personally as it fits/does not fit with your own morality/philosophy.

If Endeavor can be redeemed and live, and he’s Bakugou’s negative foil, I highly doubt Shigaraki and Deku as well as Touya and Shouto and Ochaco and Himiko will be any different. Why? Because Enji is an adult character. The others--well, Himiko’s age we don’t know, but we do know that Shigaraki and Dabi are technically adults. But does the story consider them adults?

(It doesn’t.)

Child-coded characters are generally more likely to survive a redemption, which I’ll explain more later. First I have to define what I mean by child-coding, because I DO NOT mean this in the way it’s often (mis)used in fandom wank. Child-coding is a real thing, but it is not done to infantilize and it has nothing to do with shipping.

Child coding frames the character as a child for a few narrative purposes to convey a story’s theme or purpose. For example, if it’s a coming of age story coding a character as a child even if they legally are not emphasizes their journey to an understanding of self-actualization, or a true understanding of self with self-awareness and an understanding of self-value. An example of an adult coded as a child is The Kite Runner, wherein Amir is a legal adult for half the story, even married for fifteen years so we’re talking 30s-40s, but he does not truly become an adult until he returns to his homeland and takes responsibility for a childhood sin. In Attack on Titan, the main characters are now nineteen, but are still struggling to take responsibility as adults and have only started doing so now that their mentors/parental figures have started dying.

Along those lines, in any kind of story, you can code a character as a child of someone, regardless of biological relationship, to convey the type of relationship they have (usually a mentor one). For an example of this, see Bungo Stray Dogs’ Dazai and Akutagawa. Despite their two year age difference, Dazai recruited him to the mafia, abandoned him, and Akutagawa desperately seeks his approval. Usually in these stories a character will “overcome” their parental figure. This can be done through overcoming their need for the parental figure’s approval in stories where the parental figure is kindly (such as in Harry Potter, when in the final book Harry, Ron, and Hermione leave the Weasleys to find the Horcruxes despite Mrs. Weasley’s please) or through like, killing/stopping/leaving the parental figure when they are abusive (see fairy tales like Rapunzel and Cinderella). The parental link to self-actualization is because it is childlike (and a part of actual psychology that is reflected in literature) to see yourself as a part of your parent; self-actualized person would see yourself as a distinct person from your parent, but also acknowledge the ways in which they’ve shaped you.

So, how do you code a character as a child? BNHA isn’t subtle about it, because Horikoshi seldom is subtle about anything. The villain trio are all coded as children.

Shigaraki Tomura:

Who cannot achieve self-actualization so long as AFO has access to his body, as he’s literally trying to possess him. He’s trying, but it’s not gonna work because Shigaraki can’t keep AFO and become an adult at the same time. It’s a choice the narrative is setting up: your dream of destroying, or your freedom? (To get the latter, he’ll probably have to destroy AFO).

Todoroki Touya, who is repeatedly emphasized as a small child when compared to his siblings, and yes, I know he’s now tall. Specifically he’s spotlighted as the child of Endeavor:

And he’s the least self-actualized one in a lot of ways, contradicting himself constantly. I’m not Endeavor, DUH! But these are Endeavor’s flames! He’s gonna have to choose one or the other, because the tragic irony is that the more he takes out his rage on those around him, the more like Endeavor he becomes.

And Toga Himiko (who might well literally be a legal child), who is actually the most self-actualized one thus far, because she rejects Curious’s child insistence (Curious holds her in a Pieta pose, based on Michelangelo’s statue wherein Mary holds a deceased Christ):

She’s still got, like, a way to go though:

Because Himiko also wants to be like the people she loves to the point where she loses her own identity in them, which is er, not self-actualization. So she’ll have to choose whether or not she really wants to be like the people she loves or whether she wants to live her own way, which she herself tells us how that would end (death):

Deku said it himself: it’s good to focus on what someone is doing now. And look, I have issues with this statement and how it’s framed. I’ve talked about it at length and it was doomed to fail because Shouto himself told us long ago that it was annoying to hear a righteous speech by a stranger when you hadn’t gone through the same, plus Endeavor kinda failed by choosing being a hero over a dad here. But, the principle is that if the past doesn’t preclude Endeavor from seeking a better self, why would it preclude three characters coded as children, one of whom is literally somewhat the product of Endeavor’s sins? BNHA doesn’t think the past keeps someone from a better future. 

So what about Dabi’s counterpoint, which is indeed valid? Well, redemption doesn’t mean the past forgets, either. It’s complicated and nuanced, and we can debate how well Horikoshi strikes this nuance (it’s got its flaws), and admittedly I don’t know how this will go down in the future. But it is asking Endeavor: how do you redeem yourself to the people you’ve hurt? And we have Endeavor asking this question to Touya’s shrine. I mean, the foreshadowing is obvious. Endeavor has to redeem himself by trying to save Touya. However, it will still probably come down to Shouto to save Touya.

For our three villains, it’s a little harder to predict... well, sort of. For Shigaraki it’s extremely obvious: he has to help take down AFO. Dabi probably has to do something to help his family (siblings probably), but it’s vague. Toga needs help and not condemnation, but presumably she’ll help Ochaco with something.

So, is this redemption? I’d define it as redemption in the eyes of the narrative. To address what makes a redemption is another essay unto itself, but if we bring in the oft-compared Star Wars example: did Darth Vader get a redemption? Did Ben Solo? Everyone says yes to both. However, only Luke witnesses Vader’s redemption, and only Rey Ben Solo’s. So the rest of the galaxy? Doesn’t think so. When I say they’ll be redeemed, I’m defining it as their role in the eyes of the narrative, not whether or not society will accept them or even whether their victims will forgive them (of note, in canonical novels, Leia never forgave Darth Vader despite learning he was her father and obviously knowing Luke’s account of his redemption was true).

So, redemption in a narrative doesn’t mean all of society has to forgive and accept them. Dabi has still like, murdered 30 people--many of whom were thugs, but he himself acknowledges they didn’t deserve to die. Additionally, he himself also acknowledges that the families left behind--their feelings matter:

But why does that mean they have to die? Why even does it mean they have to languish in prison forever? (If there’s even a safe prison at the end of BNHA which I kinda have doubts about.) Heroes have also killed: see Hawks as Exhibit A. In fact, some people want revenge on the heroes precisely because they arrested or killed their loved ones (jail isn’t held up as a rehabilitative place in BNHA’s world. In most countries it isn’t in real life, either, but again that’s for another essay). So why don’t the League’s feelings on Twice’s death matter just as much as the feelings of unnamed and unseen (and thereby less important narratively) characters?

Additionally, regarding death... the villains routinely get called on their death wishes. Himiko’s determination to decide how/when she dies is called out because this is right  before Twice overcomes his trauma to save her, and the next arc they appear in is when Twice dies trying to save her again. Dabi’s suicide wish keeps him from getting close to others, and it keeps getting thwarted. Shigaraki’s obsession with destruction and death is clearly not a good thing, and his rejection of his family’s desire for them to join him in death this past arc is growth.

In other words: what Dabi said and what Snatch said about families and how they feel matter for the villains too. The villains are their own weird found family (Dabi as the deadbeat prodigal brother of both his families). Their deaths--Magne’s and Twice’s thus far, and I’m not ruling out further deaths in the future--affect the others. People’s feelings on losing loved ones matter. The villains are people, as Himiko said herself this arc:

Their feelings about each other matter:

How would Touya dying affect the Todorokis? At least they saved him spiritually, I guess, but that’s absolutely lame narratively, and if you have Enji eventually do a sacrifice to save Dabi (pretty likely, even if I personally think Enji will survive said sacrifice) then what’s the point of Dabi dying? How would Himiko dying affect society? As a martyr like Curious wanted her to be, even a redeemed one? A tragic warning story? What even is the point of Ochaco saving her if that’s the case? If Shigaraki dies, well, who would mourn besides Deku? How would Shigaraki dying affect the surviving members of the league? He just couldn’t be saved physically? 

It’s not impossible some of this happens, but it doesn’t seem like great writing, especially with panels like, oh, these that show us BNHA’s perspective on death:

Sacrificing something is a type of death that occurs in stories; this should happen in a redemption arc, which is why I’ve been saying Enji needs to sacrifice his hero reputation to help save Touya and even then it’ll still be Shouto imo who does the saving. But physical death?

If you want further analysis of the latter two panels and how they relate to the ending, see here.

We already have another villain who will definitely die redemptively (Kurogiri--an adult coded character--because he’s already, like, dead), and Spinner and Mr. Compress aren’t coded as kids so I hold them with anxiety towards the end. But again, this isn’t me being ageist or saying this is the way things ought to be in fiction or real life: it’s me looking at writing tropes and saying that child-coded characters tend to survive their redemptions. See: Zuko. Why? Because the death of children or child-coded characters is a tragedy. When a child-coded character dies redemptively it doesn’t feel like a happy ending and if framed as such, it’s often criticized for bad writing (see: Ben Solo). Curious even called this out in her fight with Himiko. I would hope Horikoshi doesn’t end the story being like yeah Curious was right that’s the best use of Himiko’s/Dabi’s/Shigaraki’s arcs:

Additionally, as for the believability of a character getting a new chance after so much destruction and murder... well, it’s kinda a thing in shonen and even in seinen? For better or for worse, it’s a thing. We have Vegeta in Dragon Ball Z and Kaneki Ken in Tokyo Ghoul (Kaneki, by the way, is absolutely an inspiration for Shigaraki). We can debate how well-written these redemptions are (I personally have been quite critical of Kaneki’s despite wanting it to happen narratively), but it can be done. BNHA’s Japan especially isn’t as harsh a world as Tokyo Ghoul’s Japan, so it would make even more sense for something like Kaneki’s ending.

The reality is that the cycle of revenge via hurting people and then leaving hurting families and loved ones has to stop somewhere. Someone has to be the bigger person and step up and be like “naw.” That’s heroic. That’s brave. That’s sacrificial itself. Justice itself doesn’t really exist in its purest form without mercy.

There’s another genre-reason I don’t see death or jail as likely (I could see, like, maybe a mental health ward like Rei’s? But it’s too soon to speculate).

If saving is considered a good thing for the story, if it’s truly the highest ideal, then saving someone should be rewarded by the narrative. The characters who save should have a positive result to show us this a good thing.

This is why it doesn’t work for the heroes’ end journey to be accepting that some people cannot be saved. The notion of just accepting that you cannot do something, you cannot save everyone, you cannot, cannot, cannot, is called out as a flaw of society. Determination, on the other hand, is rewarded.

We see it with Deku as well as with Mirio.

So, what if they save them and the redeemed characters then go on to sacrifice themselves in their redemption and die (come to the same end)? If saving changes absolutely nothing for the saved person, if it’s too late for the saved from themselves to change and/or do anything that matters besides die, then the narrative theme of saving as important is left unemphasized at best and undermined at worst. Simple intrinsic knowledge that the kids “did the right thing” doesn’t cut it for a story with so much focus on physical saving when the kids are already doing the right thing; moral struggles about whether to choose to be good aren’t really Deku, Ochaco, or Shouto’s arcs. It works for Aizawa’s arc with Kurogiri, but not for the kiddos. If BNHA was more of a philosophical/spiritual text, that would indeed make sense, but it is not. Genre-wise, BNHA is a fantastical superhero optimistic story, not a gritty real-world set drama.

[ethernetchord]

lets talk: popular iwwv criticism

(disclaimer: i know criticism is subjective and thats why im doing this, i wanna look at some common points made against iwwv and dissect them just a little bit in the opposite direction. also none of this is directed at any individual- it’s all based on the general talking points i’ve seen surrounding the book.)

SPOILER WARNING !!

lack of exploration into james and oliver (+ gay characters feel performative)

i’ve seen loads of people say that oliver and james’ relationship felt very performative, a way of including the queer romnce which clearly is very important to the plot but not actually giving it any space in the novel, nor developing it to the same extent which meredith/oliver was.

oliver and meredith had a very strictly physical relationship and while he did love her, he wasn’t in love with her the way he was with james. the juxtaposition in the way that oliver/james is delivered and the way meredith/oliver is delivered is, i believe, far too repetitive to not be intentional. i actually realised upon re-reading how much focus there really is on meredith’s sexuality, even in subtleties in the book. meredith and oliver get more blatant sex scenes, get more physical parts because oliver was (to an extent) using his attraction to meredith to distract himself from his infatuation with james.

we also have to remember that oliver and james didn’t get their real moment of honesty about their relationship till extremely late into the book. i’d honestly see it as more ‘performative’ to then after or in the middle of kind lear throwing in some wild sex scene between the two. it wouldn't have fit.

“why didn’t james and oliver get together earlier then >:(((“ because the slow burn between them, the subtext, the subtle-ness, the yearning, they were all crucial to the decision which oliver made at the end. the fact that they burned so bright for each other but (oliver particularly) were so desperately repressed, that was what made this such a tragic romance. yes its tiring to read stories about queer people being repressed, yes its tiring to see the bury your gays trope. but like oliver says, it goes beyond gender.

if oliver’s second love interest was a girl, and treated this way, we’d be a lot more on board with these tropes- but the fact that james is a man, and this therefor becomes a queer relationship, makes it feel performative. i can’t convince you of anything- but i like to believe that their relationship being treated like this not only makes it so much more “heart wrenching because why! why couldn’t it work out, why couldn’t it be better!” - not because its a queer relationship but because they were soulmates.

alexander wasn’t performative. not in the slightest, rio just didn’t make being gay his entire identity. same goes for colin. just because they’re queer doesn’t mean it needs to be the only thing about them. this isn’t a lgbt novel- characters dont have to be gay just for plot. they can just be gay.

i’ve also seen people complain about not just making oliver bisexual. guys. did you read the book? he was bisexual. he was emotionally and physically attracted to both meredith and james. guys that’s literally what bisexual means.

i'm totally on board with the coming out scenes! and realisation of feelings and all that stuff- but again, not an lgbt centric novel and also- these were things oliver probably did and realised far before this book. remember that its set in 4th year, at an art school. he knew he was fruity ok. not every queer character in every queer book have to have these grandious coming out scenes or realisations. the lack there of doesn’t equal performance.

the ending was rushed and bad

believe what you will, but i don’t think james is dead. there’s a little too much ambiguity in that ending, in the extract he leaves oliver, in the “his body was never found.” so if your main quarrel with the ending is that “bury your gays” situation- please know there’s a chance- and that giving it that chance opens up so much more discussion and reader response.

yes, the ending is sad. but it’s not rushed. “but that is how a tragedy like ours or king lears breaks your heart- by making you believe the ending might still be happy until the very last second.” doing king lear, doing macbeth, doing romeo and juliet, the plays are chosen not only for reader convenience (they’re plays readers will most likely be familiar with) but also because they all, so very deeply, foreshadow a “bad” ending. killing james, makes sense. as much as people don’t want to hear it, from an authorial perspective- from the reader’s perspective and as a human being it makes sense. why do keep arguing that he “should’ve stayed alive for oliver” or that “if he really loved oliver he wouldn’t have done it” - why are we limiting a character’s entire existence down to their love interest. yes, they were best friends, yes they were set up as lovers but that doesn’t mean that that would be enough to keep james around. james was a fragile character- he was always checking with oliver if he had upset him, he was always worried, overthinking, james wasn’t strong minded- and he was suffering. the only person he had left to depend on was in prison, he was plagued with the guilt of causing the death of a classmate and letting oliver take the blame, if he did kill himself, it sure as hell doesn’t have any reason to sound forced.

“its not nearly as good as the secret history!!!!”

to be honest here buds, why the fuck do we keep comparing them so insistently. they are not the same book. iwwv wasn’t trying to be tsh 2.0, yes there are similarities because hey! guess what! books in similar genres tend to do that! always comparing it tsh when they have different motives, different plots and vastly different execution makes no sense. the only reason that they are compared is because tumblrtm dark academics like to group the two together. and yea- makes sense, but stop trying to belittle iwwv because it isn't as grandiose as tsh, because it’s a little more literal, because it’s not as intertextual as tsh. half the people saying iwwv isn’t as good as tsh are practically just subtly going “shakespeare isn’t as complicated as ancient greek huehue” stop forcing the two together and let them be separately appreciated.

the characters were flat/archetypes/etc

sigh. okay.

these characters are actors. this book shows us their transition from themselves entirely into a conjunction of the roles they’ve played and the stereotypes they’ve portrayed.

“we were so easily manipulated - confusion made a masterpiece of us.”

“for us, everything was a performance”

“imagine having all your own thoughts and feelings tangled up with all the thoughts and feelings of a whole other person. it can be hard, sometimes, to sort out which is which.”

“far too many times i had asked myself whether art was imitating life or if it was the other way around”

“it’s easier now to be romeo, or macbeth, or brutus, or edmund. someone else.”

are you seeing it now? this focus on their archetypes, this focus on the character they are; the way they see themselves not merely as human but as a walking concoction of every character they have turned into and out of. they depend on their archetypes to give them meaning. rio uses these archetypes to remind us of the submersion of her characters. they weren’t flat, their intentional lack of dimension due to their pasts is what makes them so intricate. furthermore, there's an evident subversion- the tyrant becomes a victim, the hero becomes a villain (they all become villains really), the ingenue becomes corrupted. like mentioned before, i think we forget ourselves easily reading this book but there is a great deal of emphasis on this being their last year- which is so important. the damage has been done and a lot of the issues people have with the content (or lack thereof) in this book has to do with the fact that it’s all things that would have occurred in books focusing on previous years at delletcher.

“it didn't live up to expectation” (also leading on from read tsh to this and being ‘disappointed’)

i cant argue this because its entirely subjective. whatever expectation was created for you, i cannot know that and appropriately respond however- if you liked the secret history and understood the secret history then there's a good chance you also liked and understood this book- even if not to the same extent but you must be able to recognize the authorial approach and its significance. i think a lot of ppl read iwwv (and a lot of “dark academia” texts and films) and hope to be able to romanticize the aesthetic or the concepts and then are disappointed when they are presented with mildly unlikeable and overwhelmingly human characters who aren’t easy to romanticize.

a great majority of these books are criticisms of the very culture you’re trying to romanticize, and the only time you’re willing to admit that is when boasting about the ‘self-awareness’ of the people indulging in them, and then a moment later complain about those same qualities because they don’t serve this idealized expectation.

bad rep for arts/liberal arts/ humanities students as being pretentious/cultish

as a humanities student with a great love for eng lit- all of these things are indeed pretentious and cultish. not all the time and not always and not every person- but it is a common theme. academia is overwhelmingly obsessive and extremely white-washed. people become so fast to believe that they are indulging in finer arts and are therefore a higher standard of person. academia is problematic. and the recent influx of people interested in it is good, very good because hopefully, we’ll be more diverse, more open-minded, more accepting. that's what i hope at least. if you know, as an individual, that you’re not a pretentious academic who places themselves above non-academics then that's wonderful- but there are dangers and negative sides to academia that need to be understood so that we can see to not perpetuating them.

i cant refute all points, mostly because there's a lot of good and well-explained criticism because no book is perfect. and my intentions are not to belittle anyone's opinion. these are merely opposing arguments, food for thought and to be fair- a critical look into why not everything is always going to be what we expect of it and why every ‘problem’ can be assessed.

[hongism]

mists of celeste ➻ 37.5

➻ characters: yeosang, wooyoung, yunho ➻ genre: space au, pirate au, space pirate!ateez, angst ➻ word count: 3.6k ➻ rating: M ➻ warnings: language, violence, guns and weaponry, blood, future warnings tba chapter specific warnings: past abuse and dubious consent are discussed - no graphic depictions of any of the above, depictions of piercings and needles. this interim deals with heavy topics relating to a whorehouse and it is not required to read this interim to understand the rest of the story. it is an optional chapter as all interims are, so please skip over this one if you are not comfortable with the warnings tagged ➻ summary: Sneaking aboard the ship of a renowned space pirate may not have been the best idea, but you’ll have to make do with what fate has handed to you

⇐ previous | next ⇒ | masterlist

✧✧✧ act five ➻ part 4.5

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“I’d like you to give me more piercings.”

“I—” 

The blunt statement catches Yunho a bit off-guard, moreso than he would like to admit, and as much as he tries to hide that shock, it still slips through nonetheless. He blinks back at Wooyoung with some wonder in his eyes, enough to make the other man tilt his head in question. Yeosang stands beside him as well though the Elitist’s eyes remain unfocused and noncommittal. It’s been quite some time since Yunho gave Wooyoung any piercings — god, how long has it been? Two years? Maybe three? Surely that can’t be right… — and the doctor is absolutely no stranger to the reasons why Wooyoung would be asking for such a thing now. However, because he tries to be a good and fair doctor, Yunho never goes through with the piercings unless he and Wooyoung have talked things through. 

And by that, he means therapy, basically. Checking in on where Wooyoung is at mentally and emotionally before doing anything drastic. Yet that also brings more challenges than anything else because out of everyone Yunho has ever treated in his years being a doctor, Wooyoung is by far the more difficult. He doesn’t like talking about himself, his experiences, his feelings; he despises the thought of sharing intimate and vulnerable parts of himself outside of Yeosang, but according to the Elitist, it’s near impossible to get Wooyoung to speak even when it’s just the two of them together. 

Yunho would call it a phenomenon of trauma but frankly, it makes a perfect amount of sense.

Given what Wooyoung has been through and experienced — between being a slave and suffering at the hands of not one but two cruel masters — Yunho truly cannot blame the young man for being so hesitant to talk about his feelings. But, as he said, he knows vaguely how Wooyoung must be feeling if he is coming to Yunho for more piercings now.

“You hardly have any room left on those ears for more piercings, Woo,” Yunho comments through a slightly strained smile. Wooyoung opts to simply wave a hand through the air in response. Yeosang glares at the floor. “Take a seat.”

There is a large amount of struggle in this for Yunho. On one hand, he wants to be firm, stand his ground, and say absolutely not until Wooyoung opens up a little. On the other side of things, Yunho understands that this is what Wooyoung needs to cope with whatever trauma he experienced while being held captive. Yunho doesn’t know all the details, of course, he merely knows that Wooyoung was held in a cell on a ship with San and Mingi for several days before being sold to a whorehouse in Lynder. Then he stayed a few days in that whorehouse. He no doubt had to work against his will, no doubt gave in and didn’t fight what he was told to do even though he didn’t want it, and it no doubt brought back horrid memories from his time as a slave. Yunho isn’t stupid. Such a thing would be taxing for anyone.

The other thing Yunho is grossly over aware of is the fact that pain, to Wooyoung, is nothing. He still has a hard time wrapping his brain around that. Wooyoung… feels pain to a certain degree like any other person would but he has conditioned himself into not feeling it the way others might. The slice of a knife against his arm would be nothing but a pinch of a needle on his skin and wouldn’t bother him one bit; all it is to him is a small pinprick. He asks people to go harder on him when sparring. He punches closed fists against his thighs when he’s upset. He enjoys getting piercings after going through something that would otherwise be traumatic for others. Because it doesn’t hurt. Yunho recalls asking once about it because at the time he didn’t understand that either.

“Why do you ask for piercings as though you want to be hurt? If you don’t really feel that pain? What do you gain from it in that case?”

“Because it’s a pain that I get to choose. All my life I’ve been subjected to pains that are not my own doing or that I didn’t ask for. But in asking for a piercing and choosing where it will go and when it will happen… I get to choose that pain. Getting to have that after suffering pains I didn’t want feels liberating in a way. I enjoy it, as bad as that sounds. It helps me cope with what I’ve been through. Like, for every pain they force on me, I choose a new piercing. Eye for an eye but… on myself, I suppose?”

“Where would you like them?” Yunho inquires, shifting over to shuffle through his cabinets in search of his needles and barbells. “Just one or are we doing more than that?”

“Two this time, I think,” Wooyoung hums as he sits down on the edge of the first bed in his vicinity. Yeosang falls down on the bed next to him without a noise, still staying silent even though Yunho can clearly see how much this bothers him. Which part of it bothers him exactly is a mystery to Yunho because it could be any combination of things. The doctor wants to ask Yeosang if he’s okay with this but that would be a tragic mistake on his part so he bites his tongue instead. It would seem too much like giving Yeosang all the power in Wooyoung’s decisions, and doing such a thing to a former slave would only be detrimental to long-term progress. Besides, he doesn’t need the verbal confirmation when he can clearly see how much Yeosang does not want Wooyoung to do this.

Yunho’s hand hesitates over his growing collection of piercing rods, and he glances back at Wooyoung once more.

“Where are you wanting them?”

“Nipples!” The combination of Wooyoung’s blatant enthusiasm as well as Yeosang’s far too deadpan expression sends Yunho reeling, and he chokes around nothing but air before truly processing Wooyoung’s request. 

“A-Ah, I see, of course. One moment,” Yunho murmurs, blinking down at his collection with a bit of bewilderment before picking out what he thinks to be the right size barbells. He’s not unfamiliar with these sorts of piercings — ones on the body that is — and he has found himself well acquainted with certain body parts of the crew to a point where he is no longer uncomfortable with doing things like this for them. Wooyoung is one of the few (the others being Yeosang, Seonghwa, and Y/N) who Yunho is not well acquainted with in that way, however, so this does come as a bit of a surprise. “Your shirt… would you mind taking it off?” Wooyoung strips himself of his top in the next second, and Yunho watches the way the fabric catches on his metal collar before springing loose. Then his eyes settle on the expanse of freshly exposed skin. It elicits a sharp gasp from Yeosang as well, one that Yunho matches in intensity because… well. Yeah. Yunho isn’t sure how to phrase what comes to his mind then. 

“Wooyoung,” Yeosang exhales as he balls his fists around the sheets. Wooyoung stares forward at Yunho with a certain expectancy, like he’s challenging the doctor to not breathe a word about the sight before him, but Yunho would rather lose that challenge right now.

There are… bruises against Wooyoung’s waist. Vaguely shaped like large, manly hands that press the outlines of fingers into his tanned skin. They wrap about the young man’s lithe waist and leave little to the imagination about what sort of scenario and position Wooyoung must have been in when receiving such bruises. The sweeping sensation in Yunho’s gut is so strong that it nearly makes him sick on the spot. Yeosang just looks angry at this point, and Yunho cannot blame him all too much for that. With a sigh, the doctor sinks onto his stool and presses closer to the bed until his knees bump against Wooyoung’s. 

“Wooyoung, we need to talk about… this.” Yunho motions to the other’s torso, unable to peel his gaze off the ugly marks. 

“What is there to talk about?” Wooyoung sounds almost genuine when asking the question. “We all know the nature of working in a whorehouse. There’s nothing to discuss.”

“That’s not — you didn’t — Wooyoung.” Yunho may or may not be bordering on desperation when he exhales this time. He has dealt with a lot of different scenarios and situations as a doctor, but something of this degree is far out of his wheelhouse. 

“I asked them to be rough,” Wooyoung admits through a whisper so quiet that Yunho at first thinks he misheard what the man said.

“W-What was that?” 

“I said I asked them to be rough.” Wooyoung’s repetition doesn’t make it any easier to hear. Almost worse. Definitely worse. “I told them to rough me up a little, make me hurt some, I asked them to treat me that way.”

Yunho spares a pleading glance in Yeosang’s direction, hoping that the man will have some insight on this part of Wooyoung since that is far from Yunho’s specialty. He doesn’t know… intimate details about Yeosang and Wooyoung’s more physical relationship, but Yeosang would surely be the person to ask for confirmation about this side of the man. Instead of a small nod of approval or some sign that this is normal, all Yunho sees is a horrid scowl.

“You — did you want them to be this rough with you?” Yunho asks, tone falling into a more quiet one now.

“I asked them to make me hurt, Yunho.”

“That wasn’t the question, Wooyoung. Did you want them to do that?”

“I came here to get my fucking nipples pierced, not to be interrogated pointlessly,” Wooyoung snaps back. This time he pushes some venom into his tone but it rolls off Yunho’s shoulders without sticking one bit. “I like pain during sex. I like when Yeosang pushes me around and hits me some even when I’m fully in control. I barely feel it anyways so why should it matter at all? Now are you gonna do this or not because I’m sure I can do it myse—”

Wooyoung moves to push up off the bed and make for the door but Yeosang is quicker to wrap his hand around Wooyoung’s wrist and pull him back without a word.

“Did they do anything you didn’t want?” The Elitist asks through tightly gritted teeth.

The hesitation and silence speak volumes, Yunho is hurdling towards a conclusion he does not want to hear, and he is ready to cry by the time Wooyoung finally opens his mouth and answers the question.

“No, they didn’t. I got lucky. I got fucking lucky, Yeosang. All my clients in those days were fucking kind and only did what I told them they could because the workers knew I was fresh meat. They knew people like me needed to be treated gently for the first few weeks so they only sent clients with good and safe track records to my room. Those clients only ever did what I told them to, only did what I said was okay, didn’t touch me if I said no. I got lucky.” Wooyoung spits the words like he hates himself for speaking them, and Yunho thinks somewhere in the back of his mind that the man was not as lucky as he says he was. He should be relieved, grateful even that he got lucky, but he only sounds enraged. 

“Were there…” Yunho starts but his question dies a bit early on his tongue. He swallows around nothing, pulling a pair of latex gloves off his workstation and working his fingers into them as he mulls over his next words. When the last of the latex snaps around his wrist, he finally speaks again. “Were there ones who weren’t lucky?”

“Every fucking night after my clients left, I got to listen to the prostitute next door sob alone in a room with no one to help him. And the very first night I tried to talk to him through the fucking wall and ask him if he was okay and if he was hurt, and he told me I was lucky to be fresh meat. That they would listen to me because I was new and still had some hope left in my eyes. While he didn’t get that chance, he didn’t get to dictate what he wanted or didn’t want because people just took it from him for so long that he lost the will to ask. So yeah, there were ones who didn’t get lucky. There always are.”

Yunho opens his mouth but closes it just as quick, expression a cross between blank and just flat out dumb because he doesn’t know what to say if there even is something to say.

“That’s not your fault, Wooyoung,” Yeosang says instead, but his grip on the other’s wrist releases. “What happened to him is not your fault.”

“What was it that your mother said when you picked me out of a line of slaves? That I was lucky to be picked? But why did I get to be lucky while others suffered? Why did I get to choose not to be hurt or in pain while that prostitute was stripped of that choice? We were all whores for sale in that place so what did I do to deserve being treated better than him? What did he do to deserve being treated worse?”

“Woo…” Somehow the Elitist manages to sound genuinely saddened by the words. 

“The very least I could do was ask to be treated the same as him, was it not? But I couldn’t even have the courage to ask for that? The only thing I could do was ask them to hurt me even though I knew it wouldn’t really hurt. How lucky I was, right? If I’m not hurt, then it doesn’t matter who else gets hurt in the process, does it?”

“Wooyoung.” The edge in Yeosang’s tone pushes forward, bordering on threatening, but Wooyoung is hellbent on speaking his mind right now and any threat from Yeosang won’t stop him. Yunho has the thought to intervene and stop them but he knows — he knows how badly Wooyoung needs this right now. If this will help him cope with what he had to go through then Yunho is in no place to stop him. 

If this is what he needs to make Yeosang cope with it too, then Yunho again is in no place to stop him.

“How does it feel, Yeosang? Knowing that the only reason I was hurt in there is because I asked for it? Do you still think we got lucky?”

“Don’t ask me questions you don’t want the answers to.”

“No, because if it had been you in there, things would have been different. Because you — you are lucky, Yeosang. You always have been and you always will be. Yet no matter how many times I tell you that, you still refuse it. You—” Wooyoung stabs his index finger hard against Yeosang’s chest, voice coming out a bit choked and wet now “—could have sat there for weeks and listened to that boy next door cry and sob without an ounce of sympathy. Because that’s what an Elitist would do. That what you were raised to do, that’s in your blood, how your brain works. But it’s not how mine works. So you don’t get to sit there and tell me that I made the wrong decision.” 

Perhaps Yunho is too used to conflict and gross distortions of communication because when Yeosang stands down rather than fighting back against Wooyoung’s words, he’s overwhelmed. Simply put, he is overwhelmed. He doesn’t know how else to describe the swell of emotions in his chest. But Yeosang just lets his shoulders sag and his face falls flat once more, anger ebbing out of his expression like Wooyoung has a tight grip of control over him. Yeosang isn’t a person to stand down so easily; he’s stubborn, has a short fuse and even shorter patience that causes issues more often than not, and he hates when things don’t go his way. Yunho merely assumed the same would apply to his relationship with Wooyoung. 

It doesn’t, as it seems. 

“Then what would you have me do, Wooyoung? Let you bend until you break without batting an eye? Watch as you blame yourself for something that happened to a person you didn’t even know? Who had been there well before you? Letting you torture yourself for things that are out of your control is not logical or fair; I don’t need to be an Elitist to realize that.”

“You can be as upset as you want, I don’t mind if you’re upset, that’s not what this is about!” Wooyoung argues back, voice climbing in volume a bit. Yunho takes it upon himself to lean away from the bed a bit, and he does his best to make himself seem as insignificant as possible while prepping his clamps and needles. “It doesn’t matter if it was my fault or not. What matters is that he suffered while I did not. And even asking to be hit and pushed around and bruised wasn’t enough because I was still asking for it. I’m… I’m not saying that I wanted my choice taken away — I would never ever ask for that or want that in any capacity. That’s the worst possible thing that could ever happen to a person. No one deserves that. No one. It just didn’t feel fair enough even though it was all I could do to make it feel fair. So yeah, I got fucking lucky, I guess. But he didn’t do anything to deserve to be unlucky.”

“I’m not saying that he did, Woo,” Yeosang whispers to the space between them. “I’m certain that he was a good person who got a bad hand in life, and I’m sure he deserved much better than what he was given. You always ask me to consider your thoughts and feelings on matters. You tell me that it’s because I’m an Elitist that I can’t understand you. You say I just have to accept things and move on, but you don’t — I’m not some emotionless husk, Wooyoung. Being an Elitist doesn’t make me not feel anything. Just because I think with logic more than emotion doesn’t mean that I can’t have emotions. For every fucking night you were gone from my side, I suffered too. It felt like I was losing you to the fate you wanted to fight together, and there was nothing I could do except wait. I was lucky too. Lucky that I didn’t have to wait longer or fight harder to get you back. Lucky that we got you on the first try. Lucky to have you even sitting before me now. It’s not… the reason I keep saying that we got lucky isn’t because I think everyone else in that whorehouse deserves the fate they were given. It’s because we had the chance to fight what fate gave us and took it.”

Yeosang manages a shaky exhale. He blinks down at his hands without saying anything for several moments, but doesn’t look back up at Wooyoung even when he decides to talk again.

“For the first time in over fourteen years, I didn’t get to be your shield. I wasn’t at your side. It wasn’t as simple as coming home from a mission and having you by my side, in my bed, or being in your arms. None of that was even an option because it wasn’t a mission and there was no guarantee of if you would ever come back. I have dedicated my whole life to protecting you because I promised to never let you be hurt again. So you want the answer to that question? How does it feel knowing that the only reason you were hurt in there was because you asked for it? It feels like you’re fucking spitting in my face, Wooyoung, and taunting me for my failures because I wasn’t there to stop you.”

That causes Wooyoung to backtrack in an instant. Realization sinks through his skin, and Yunho doesn’t doubt that it hurts more than any pain that he could inflict on himself. Because that’s the thing about love — it can simultaneously bring you the greatest joys in life as well as the deepest ruin.

And right now?

Yunho can clearly see the ruin in Wooyoung’s features as much as he tries to contain the emotions. Yeosang doesn’t stop there, and it’s with a small shake of his head that he lifts his chin to look Wooyoung in the eye again.

“I’m not blaming you, Wooyoung. I know the kind of person you are, I know how deeply and strongly you feel, especially towards injustices and unfairness like what that boy experienced in there. I know you did what you thought you had to, and I’m not blaming you for making those decisions. But do not ask me to love you even a fragment less than I do now. I knew a boy who was in that very same position once too. Who didn’t have a choice, who couldn’t make any decisions for himself, who didn’t get to choose his pain. I knew a boy who sat on the other side of a metal divider in a bed too small for his body and cried because of how unfair life was to him. And I promised that boy I would get him out and save him and keep him safe from harm at any and all costs. I can’t keep that promise if you won’t let me.”

The breath of silence that ensues after Yeosang speaks is thick enough to choke Yunho, and he pauses his movements in the wake of that quiet because it just feels utterly wrong to even move right now. Wooyoung is dangerously still, perhaps more still than Yunho has ever seen him before. Then a tear escapes the corner of his eye and rolls down the ball of his cheek to pool at his jawline before dropping to the bed. It breaks the dam of the frozen atmosphere, and Wooyoung careens forward to smack his fist against Yeosang’s shoulder. 

“You stupid little — how can you say cute shit with that stupid lovesick look on your face? And I’m supposed to be okay? God, I’m gonna suck the soul out of you later for that, you absolute sap. Then ride you until you cry for good mea—” 

“Um, too much information, hello!” Yunho intervenes before Wooyoung can even think about finishing the thought in front of him. “Listen, I’m all for sex but I do not need to hear those kinds of details. Just… practice safe sex and wear protection. That’s all I need to know about your sex lives, please!”

“I’m just trying to show my appreciation here,” Wooyoung argues through a wet sniff, wiping at his nose with the back of his hand.

“Yes, well, save the appreciation for later. I’m still piercing you, am I not?”

“Was that enough talking for you then?” Wooyoung offers a small laugh that sounds more pitiful than anything else, but Yunho isn’t about to call him out on such a thing. 

“You tell me, Wooyoung.” Yunho shrugs a bit and glances over to where Yeosang is sitting, watching the way the Elitist folds a hand over Wooyoung’s without hesitation. “This is about how you’re feeling and where you’re at mentally and emotionally. I’m not the person who gets to determine whether it’s enough or not.”

“No, i-its — I feel… better getting to tell someone that. And getting to reassure you guys that it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Even if I still feel a bit of guilt about it, I know I couldn’t change it even if I tried. But yeah, talking about it — that helped.”

“I’m glad,” Yunho hums through a smile of his own. “I know you’re probably sick of hearing me say it over and over, but my door is always open if you’d like to talk more about it. That goes for both of you.”

“I’ll keep it in mind, Yun, don’t worry! But right now I’d like for you to put that needle through my nipples so I can get on with choking on Yeos—”

“Nope, okay! I’ll put this needle through your tongue to shut you up instead, how about that?”

✧✧✧ a/n: okay so!! i felt like this chapter was kinda necessary? considering what we saw wooyoung go through and i didn’t want to bury what he went through or act like it didn’t happen but bec of the heavy nature of the topics i wanted to make sure that it wasn’t absolutely crucial for anyone to read this and feel like they were missing out. these are serious things, they are important things, and as always i tried my best to represent those things as best i could and as realistically as possible to avoid any romanticizing of these topics so i hope i was able to convey that and the feelings the characters had well. please please please take care i love u all as always be safe and stay healthy !! i’ll see you guys soon with another chapter!

also it’s been a minute but this survey is always open for you guys to take whenever you like!

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[zenosanalytic]

Harrow the Ninth: Blood and Guts; With Feeling!!!

While I’m sure the physical trauma, gore, intentional autophagia, unintentional cannibalism, and necrophilia in the book will be what turns mainstream heads, what really grabbed me about Harrow the Ninth was its unabashed and sincere humanity.

Every character in Harrow the Ninth gets to be a full human being. The best example to my mind is Crux: a gruesome cadaver 2 parts loyalty, 3 parts shouting, and 5 parts sheer bloody-minded cussedness; who blew up a long-grieving, broken family(and their completely innocent pilot) for the “crime” of leaving the place that murdered their husband and father and broke them; who insulted, beat, and tortured Gideon her WHOLE DAMN LIFE. And, also, the major, if not only, source of kindness and sympathy in Harrow’s own.

CRUX!!! Kind uncle Crux sneaking her sweets once a year and whenever she gets sick? Reliable retainer Crux always honest with her about her hallucinations and never judging or dismissing her for them; doing EVERY BIT of what little he can to help and protect her? Soft-voiced and kind Crux being the only member of the household who DOESNT abandon her in the Nova AU? THIS IS HOW HARROW SEES CRUX! The guy who casually kicked and spit on Gideon, who treated her as less than trash and never showed her even the shadow of an ounce of kindness is, in Harrow’s mind, the kindest person in her life. That is Fucking Wild.

Everyone is allowed to be 3D in this book, even when Harrow and Gideon disdain them. Ortus -a too-big blubbering joke in Gideon the Ninth, and Gideon and Harrow’s minds both- doesn’t JUST get to be brave, to be selfless, to confront and face up to and SURMOUNT his mistakes and flaws and then ride off glorious and stupid into Valhalla, he gets something so much more important; to speak for himself. To be Known. Understood. Through Harrow’s petty sniping we get to see the love and care he has for his shitty poetry; through her defensively projected self-loathing his regret, his sympathy, the breadth of his Heart, the loyalty to Harrow which lets him be insulted and also the stubborn pride which insists those insults not go unanswered. I’m tearing up just writing this! We get to see, in his meeting Protesilaus, him struggle with the very image of EVERYTHING he wants to be but isn’t, AND we get to see him resolve that displaced self-hatred to BOTH men -who he is, and who he isn’t- and befriend them both, and realize that the physical distance between them is superficial before the siblinghood of souls, and even more: that the conceptual distance between his ideal and his reality doesn’t have to prevent him from being good. He’s still a side character but he gets an arc, development, a story, and resolution, and HE gets to give its summation. And he’s allowed to be Heroic in his own way! HIS words summon his Hero from The River to speak HIS meter while fighting to save them all powered by THEIR shared belief in HIS Art, and then a heaven of his own defining. What other book does that for a JOKE character?!

And again: this is everybody. Yes of course the souls Harrow unknowingly called up, all those too-soon dead from Gideon the Ninth; We get to see Abigail and Magnus’s love for one another -and the dreadful teens, and their universal big-heartedness- up close, and the refutation of(or perhaps counterpoint to) Ianthe’s selfish conception of love gets to come from Magnus’s lips(oh: and Abigail SAVES THE FLIPPIN DAY! Harrow gets to know her and, through this, we get to know the true tragic waste of her death at the same time that we get to watch her MAKE her own meaning from beyond the grave); we get to see Protesilaus’s bravery and grace and kindness; Dulcinea’s indefatigability and cleverness and morbidity; Marta’s selflessness and unshakeable faith in Judith; we get to see ALL OF THEM run literally soul-risking cosmic dangers to shepherd one grieving, suffering, traumatized young woman -their jailer!- not only THROUGH that grief, but also through spiritual invasion by the product of their society’s sins: Of COURSE that was Noble as Fuck and I was Sobbing.

but EVERYBODY! John, for all his exTREMELY fucked up morality and inability to understand her, GENUINELY cares for Harrow, GENUINELY tries to see the best in everyone(even if, I suspect, that’s for mostly selfish reasons), and we get to see the sincerity of that; his care, and the self-recrimination his missteps bring despite that unyielding, bullheaded, self-warping insistence to continue on one Faustian course after another. The Lyctors in all their twisted, ancient cruelty: we get to see their surviving virtues beside their ENORMOUS, demented, murderous flaws -Augustine’s cleverness, wit and charm; Mercymorn’s outrage at endangering the young; Gideon’s faithful dutifulness; the endless love and sorrow all of them have for their Cavaliers- in the context of the fear and strain and loneliness the Emperor has forced them to endure for ten thousand years. We get to see the true grief and betrayal, fresh and bloody even now, they feel at John’s lies and manipulations, the relief they feel at thinking it all finally over, and even some small glimpses of the love they’ve managed to carve out for themselves in all of that: Gideon’s necrophilic makeout with Cytherea’s corpse takes on a whole different meaning when you learn that the first soul he’s truly loved since Pyrra is driving it around. And this too is significant; for all the discomfort it brings Harrow, and the general gross-out factor, and despite their villainy, the Kindly Prince and his Lyctors, the “Adults in the Room”, are allowed to have desires; allowed to be full and sexual people.

And the same sentiment extends to how Ianthe is written. As much as she is Harrow’s tormentor(and she is); as much as she is a ghastly, gaslighting manipulator(and she absolutely is); we also clearly see that she is Harrow’s fellow prisoner and victim on that station. Her terror is real; her suffering is allowed to be real. As much as they would Harrow, the Lyctors would as soon kill Ianthe as help her, and the Emperor not only allows that mindset but orders it thinking it helpful; just so long as his deniability remains plausible throughout. She gets to be Harrow’s safest harbor in a sea of troubles while ALSO being the person fucking with her perceptions to build in her feelings of helplessness and dependency for the SOLE PURPOSE of getting in her pants. Yet Gideon herself names her joy at seeing Harrow alive Genuine; her love for Harrow, Genuine; as twisted and awful-made by the cruel ideals instilled by her life of entitlement and emotional abuse they are, those feelings are still allowed to be real and heart-felt. Her attraction to Harrow, expressed cruelly and selfishly as it is, isn’t dismissed; Muir treats it always seriously, as she does Harrow’s own desires, and repressed confusion over them, for Ianthe. Everybody in this book gets to be REAL.

Fuck even Alecto. Over and over again we get to hear the Lyctors call her a Freak, a Monster, Subhuman(and given her eyes, those white-on-black oddities, it’s very likely she ISNT human; either a Planet-Soul herself or something even stranger); we get to hear from John’s own lips -the person SHE guarded; HER Necromancer in a pairing we have seen presented as the epitome of intimacy through two books- how he betrayed and “killed” her to calm their fears of her; and yet all the while there she is with Harrow, comforting, advising, never shaming or judging, being the only real friend Harrow’s allowed herself to be aware of.

Harrow the Ninth may very well be “Genre” Fiction, but its emotional universal is not only meticulously naturalistic, it is radiantly understanding and humane.