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valkyriegoddesses · 3 years

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Thoughts on ACOSF

⚠️ SPOILERY, SO DON’T READ IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE BOOK ⚠️

⚔️ the good and the bad, I’ll try to get rid of the bad thoughts first and keep the positive ones for the end but idk where my line of thought would go as I recall and type so here we go

• Nesta’s journey of healing is hers and hers alone. She owes no one in the inner circle anything, they didn’t do her any favors. (Now before I delve into this, I just want to say that I see they (Feyre and Elain only) had good intentions, but I’m going to point out everywhere it went wrong, probably against what they planned, but still it went horribly wrong) She was still suffering all the same after she got her free will stripped from her, the decision made for her by packing her things without informing her or listening to her opinion or trying to have a more lenient approach to the matter, being threatened that her second option is being thrown to the human lands where she could die, being lied to about the consequences of her actions in law, being told she “belongs in the Hewn City”, being told she’s “a pathetic waste of life”, and choosing the place everyone admits they hate going to aka the House of Wind, as her destination to heal. Knowing full well she can’t make the descent down these stairs and would be imprisoned without the power to winnow. And instead of being given her space and time, they push her to talk and interact when all she’s trying to do is have some distance from everyone. Some time to herself, to not feel anything, to control the storm of thoughts raging on the inside. And she’s pushed time and time again to face her trauma and heal RIGHT NOW because apparently, they’re timing her. And she shouldn’t have her emotions on display, when she tells them she doesn’t feel like talking yet she’s forced to interact and socialize. Anyone who’s been forced to interact against their will knows how draining it is. Now imagine this coupled with being triggered by water, and being triggered by fire, which are a daily necessity. And imagine everyone got a decade or more to deal with their trauma and are still not entirely healed, yet your time is up after little over a year. It sucks. And I hate how what triggered them to action wasn’t that she was wasting away to nothing, but the bill. When the bill was high, they drew the line. And I hate how in the narrative, the “conversation” -even though I wouldn’t call it that because only one side was allowed to talk and the other side wasn’t allowed to object- was written in a way that made it about THEIR image, when she’s frequenting taverns. THEIR image, when she doesn’t show up to their parties. THEIR image when the bill for her drinking is high. (They say it’s too much money, as if they don’t have all the riches and they all spend money on things that are absolutely not necessary, and THEY drowned her with gifts, LOADS of gifts, after she sacrificed her power to save her sister, which she didn’t do for payment, but anyway the thought is, they had the money and just like they thought Amren deserves payment for what she did in the war, they should’ve kept the same energy for Nesta because she had no small role in that either). I just think they handled it badly. Not exactly how you’d talk to someone suffering from PTSD, depression and survivor’s guilt. For one, threatening a worse alternative isn’t helpful. Secondly, There were way too many people in that room. More than necessary. Feyre and Elain would’ve been enough AS HER FAMILY (and I’ll get to details on this in a moment). And Feyre was the only decent one handling it as someone who actually was looking for a better outcome and really had the intention to help, someone who wasn’t there just to humiliate. Amren and Rhys were only there to land jabs and poke at her insecurities and bad coping mechanisms. Rhys used his power on her to force her to obey him and we all know how it’s a big NO among them. Many of those in the IC had worse coping mechanisms. But what she was doing was too much for them to handle? She was self-destructing. And she kept her distance. If I told someone I needed my space and they kept poking their head in my business, I sure as hell would lash out. When someone needs space, their privacy should be respected. No matter how long it takes them.

And I don’t see where the problem with her drinking was. She never showed up to events drunk. We never saw her hungover the day after. She was spending some money on drinking yes, but it did not get out of hand. She was also spending money on food and gambling. All in all, not the worst coping mechanism among those who were criticizing her. Not to mention that everyone who criticized her were drinkers as well, and they all slept around during some part of their lives.

Now the problem with the presence of other people in that room, other than Feyre (if Elain didn’t wish to attend and preferred to have some space between her and and Nesta, it’s her choice) anyway, only Feyre’s presence was required. Everyone else there was just an accessory, only adding stress to the atmosphere, forcing Nesta to get on the defensive with the way they slut shamed her, shamed her for drinking, shamed her for not being able to take a bath even though she told Feyre how the water still scares her, etc. I can see Sarah wanted it to look like a “family” intervening. Like some tough love sort of thing. But she failed. Simply because, the IC might be Feyre’s found family and she might take such a talk from them because it would really be tough love. As for Nesta, she doesn’t view them as family. She barely knows them. So for a group of strangers, or let’s say newly acquainted people, to sit around her and point out her every flaw and shame her for every misstep, who wouldn’t lash out at that? It’s enough she’s forced to spend time among them, on holidays she doesn’t really believe in, where they force her to attend but actively ignore her presence and treat her like a ghost. Why make her come if they don’t enjoy her company? It’s just ridiculous. Then when she gets angry from all the pushing and lashes out and it’s entirely her fault. they’re all like “come to our gatherings where we will insult you, nitpick all your unhealthy coping mechanisms, but don’t be offended and seclude yourself, we all took decades to deal with our trauma and killed people while doing it but your coping mechanisms are unhealthy. And your actions are unforgivable because you lash out at us when we shove ourselves down your throat. How can you not like us? Everyone has to like us.” Then she gets thrown away to a war camp, a FUCKING WAR CAMP, while a big part of her trauma is because of war. And instead of dealing with her face-to-face, while being gentle and showing her they’re on her side WITHOUT JUDGEMENT, WITHOUT WINCING AND GLANCES AT EACH OTHER AND INNER CONVERSATIONS ABOUT HER WHERE SHE’S EXCLUDED, they’re like “we’re tired of your shit so here’s a house you can stay in while you sort this out away from our merry little circle, which has its nose up your business anyway. But still, sort it out away from us.” And in that house she became more and more closed off and her healing - and I will die on this hill - her healing DID NOT start until the house came into play which was her own doing. And it kicked off because of Emerie and Gwyn, who both didn’t judge her, didn’t demonize her, didn’t only see the bad in her, but accepted her as she was and loved every part of her. Showed her that she was not a waste of life and there are things to live for. As for the beloved inner circle? Beyond insulting her and her coping mechanisms, They don’t tell her about the weapons SHE made, because pro-colonization Amren doesn’t think it’s wise, that Nesta would use it against the world. (Amren do you hear how stupid you sound?) they always villianize her, assuming she’d be out to take the world and take revenge on everyone who ever glanced her way. They assumed she was bad, they assumed because she was angry, that she would use her power for killing and terrorizing and building an Empire like they all do. When all she wanted to do was listen to music and be around good company who passed her no judgement.

Anyway, getting into some details with each character:

Feyre: I hated Feyre’s “crying over scrambled eggs because my image is destroyed my sister spent so much money on drinking”. And the fact that when telling Nesta she was doing this for her own good, she told her she was embarrassed for her own image in the same breath. But beyond that I was fine with her. I loved her reconcilation with Nesta. I loved that she was one who wanted to give Nesta more time, recognized that she needed her own time. I love them together. I think without everyone’s interference, their reconcilation would’ve happened much faster. They were already making progress before ~some people~ ruined everything and caused Nesta to be closed off again. I don’t hate that Nesta sacrificed her power to save Feyre in the end. She’s her sister and she loves her and this is not the first time she proved this. She would do anything to protect her sisters and she hates herself for the times she misstepped. Even though it wasn’t her fault and there was a full grown man sitting there who conveniently got a redemption arc. What angers me though, is that it was only after this, that the inner circle viewed her as someone who is worth their respect. And made the sacrifice materialistic by drowning Nesta with gifts. She didn’t do it for their acceptance or for their love, or for payment. She did it because her sister needed help. Period. (Sidenote: I’m writing a post where I delve deep into their relationship, which I will eventually post, because I think I reached an understanding about their relationship)

Elain: let me get something out of the way, she has power. She has free will, she’s not a baby. She’s a grown woman who doesn’t need coddling. I hate how the fandom views her as a baby. And she’s constantly infantilized, preventing her from reaching her full potential. Now that that’s out of the way, here are my 2 cents on her, since she wasn’t in this book much: Nesta’s wording was very clear, yet I’ve seen this scene misread all over the timeline. Nesta said “I sat by your side for weeks. Weeks, while you wasted away, refusing food and drink. While you appeared to hope you’d just wither and die. No one suggested you either shape up or be shipped back to the human lands.” Nesta’s problem is NOT that Elain wasn’t “there” as in “by her side”. She explicitly stated she needed space. Nesta’s problem was that she stood between Elain and anyone who might tell her to snap out of it and lock her trauma in some dark room in the back of her head. She made sure Elain had her time. While Elain agreed to pack her bags and didn’t prevent them from shipping her away, deciding her time was up. All she wants is time, and Elain didn’t have her back on this. Then we have the fact that Elain slut-shamed Nesta. And then when Nesta comes to the party this time, Elain meets her at the door and her reaction instead of saying hi and leaving it at that or simply ignoring her, is “did Feyre pay you this time?” I’m torn on where to stand on the Elain-Nesta situation, a part of me is disappointed in Elain. I think she should’ve handled this better than anyone else because she was there, she witnessed the trauma happen, Nesta was there for her, they grew up being inseparable the entire time. If anyone should understand her better than anyone else, it’s Elain. So why did she abandon her to everyone’s judgement? And a part of me is like maybe she knew whatever she voted wouldn’t matter because the IC were taking the step anyway, and didn’t want to be there when it happened. Or maybe she’s still dealing with her own trauma in her own way and doesn’t want a confrontation. But I always circle back to the sl*t-shaming and the shaming about the drinking, and then I think about the Solstice scene where as soon as she saw her she was like “did Feyre pay you this time?” And a part of me is angry about the shaming undertone of that too, while some part of me thinks that maybe Elain felt unwanted along with everyone else and that in order for Nesta to meet them, she has to be paid, but we will never know unless we hear it from her.

Rhysand: that piece of shit, misogynist, who used his powers to compel Nesta to obey his orders, pulled rank on her, taunted and threatened her every step of the way and utilized her for his own agenda, and was *surprised* to learn the woman has trauma. Took him being inside her head and unable to wake her up from the nightmare, because the behavior she was exhibiting wasn’t enough. [insert shocked pickatchu meme]. I also would like to add that him playing the protective love interest from his mate’s own sister, WHO COULD’VE HARMED HER IF SHE WANTED TO, but never wanted to because she’s not a bad person, is so cheap. Like- you, the guy who drugged her and made her give you lap dances, are afraid for her sake… from her sister? Who only ever used words as jabs and is generally rude? Or do you feel like you’re overpowered and are trying to fill the void in your toxic masculinity and reassert dominance ?

Cassian: He was patient with her, and probably the healthiest person in the inner circle who dealt with her until she was okay, but he still silently agreed with all the shit that was said about her. Shit she didn’t deserve to be said about her as someone going through trauma. He mocked whatever progress she made on the stairs calling it pathetic in the beginning. He stayed silent when Nesta was stripped of her will, when she was told she belongs in the Court of Nightmares, when her fate was decided for her, when she was being lied to, when she was threatened to be thrown to the humans who would kill her. He made some progress and understood her better with time, but it doesn’t excuse how he stayed silent when she was being mistreated. Specially since he claims her loves her. He also stayed silent as the Inner Circle despised her presence but still used her to reach what they’re plotting for. He progressed, and he got better, I’ll give him that. But still, as someone who claims he loves her the way he does, he shouldn’t have allowed his friends to manipulate and use her in their schemes but then exclude her from everything else, even knowledge about her own power. But I love that he was patient, that he worked to understand her, that he grew to stand up for her. I would argue that they are the healthiest ship written by SJM this far.

Mor: fucking Mor, who experienced trauma, told Nesta she belongs in the court of Nightmares. Where she was abused herself. Knowing women are viewed as objects there, knowing Nesta would recieve abuse there. She said that, wishing abuse on someone who she simply didn’t like and had some quarrels with. They never saw eye to eye and that’s fine. They always had sharp tongues when talking to each other and that’s fine. What’s not fine though, is that THIS of all things, seemed so out of character for Mor. Now, she never knew Nesta was a survivor of SA. But as someone who helps SA victims, she’s the last person I expected such a comment from. It felt very out of character. I hate that this is the Bi character in all of this mess. Of all people, a hypocrite is the Bi person. The LGBTQ community deserves better. I thought about it, and maybe Mor, being like a stranger to Nesta, and seeing her ignore Cassian in front of the Illyrians who already look down on him, made her angry to the point where she just wanted to land a jab and didn’t think her words would mean anything. Maybe all she wanted to do was stand up for Cassian, but what she said was definitely not true and not okay. I wanted her and Nesta to have a talk about it, but also she grew to have decent conversations with her and she helped her when she and Cassian had that fight. So I don’t know, maybe it’s a silent progress between them.

Amren: this one told her she was a waste of life. What a great way to deal with someone who’s suffering from PTSD and depression and having suicidal thoughts, Amren. Tell them they’re a waste of life, enforce every thought they are having as fact, push them to the point where they doubt they should be breathing, and when they’re told they could tumble down a mountain and break their bones while hiking, their first thought would be “good”. Amren deserves a medal, a badge of honor for being the 500+ old woman who has healthy ways of dealing with traumatized people telling them they don’t deserve to live because the thoughts of their power and dealing with controlling that power right now is so overwhelming. Amren, who decided that because Nesta was always angry, she had no right to know that she used her power unknowingly and forged powerful weapons. Amren, who was pushing for colonization throughout this book, was afraid of Nesta misusing her power. Villainizing Nesta’s every thought, as if Nesta wasn’t overwhelmed from the thought of possessing so much power, as if Nesta doesn’t refuse to use her powers and train. As if Nesta is out there hiding as she masters her power to reemerge and turn the world upside down. You’re the one who’s pushing Rhys to colonize other territories and become high king, Amren. Maybe *you* should be locked up in the house of wind for therapy. What hurts most in this is Amren was her friend. She trusted Amren. Amren said that shitty line to her and then lied to her and manipulated her and used her to further Rhys’s agenda. She flopped from telling Feyre that Nesta is immortal and a few years are nothing, and she should be given time. She would not betray her trust, to whatever she turned into in ACOSF. And everyone give SJM a round of pats on the back and an applause for making Amren the wise one here and making Nesta, the traumatized one who was wronged, get on her knees and apologize. I mean- if you thought this apology scene was necessary, then clarification about the fight between them was just as necessary. Or you include neither scene. But deeming the apology important and not the incident? This is some victim blaming on a whole other level.

The House of Wind: The house of wind was honestly one of the best parts of this book. It was Nesta, “Lady Death” as they call her, breathing life into something, and it was gentle, and it was patient, and it was understanding, and it pushed her to be healthier without judging, without throwing insults or slut-shaming. It hated that she didn’t eat? It kept waiting for her until her body gave out and she had to eat. It didn’t like her drinking? It gave her water when she asked for wine. It showed her its darkest part where she found the greatest warmth as well, as if saying don’t be ashamed of your darkness because in it you’ll find light, and it didn’t abandon her or stop responding to her when she was angry. It was actively by her side, without any judgement, only support and pushing her to fix the behaviours without dissing her. and it was everything those people around her weren’t. It was family.

Gwyn: their first meeting wasn’t at all what you would call “friendly”, to a fault by Nesta. Gwyn didn’t even know anything about Nesta, yet she didn’t react with even more anger as ~others~ did, she didn’t fear Nesta, or give a retort, or get angry and lash out at her. She took the blow and was, with all the calm in the world, like fine, you want to tell on me, go tell. And Nesta did go tell on her, then realized by herself how she acted rashly. And later helped Gwyn without being asked to, by swapping the book so Merrill doesn’t scold her. And their friendship grew to the point where Gwyn, a traumatized person who couldn’t dare leave the library, started training with her, was her friend and had conversations with her that didn’t center her trauma or her coping mechanisms being analyzed. She went out of the library for the first time in 2 years when she knew Nesta needed her by her side. She occupied her mind with stories of Valkyries, women being strong and unyielding in a society which didn’t allow it. She took her hand and gave her a purpose in life to work for. Gave her a friend who didn’t judge, a kind face in the maelstorm of judgemental faces. Until she felt like a safe space to Nesta to the point where she spilled all her thoughts, the ones she could only admit to herself, to Gwyn, letting her inside those walls. And when she braced for judgement, she didn’t receive it. Gwyn dealing with someone’s trauma, as someone who’s been through trauma herself, is one of the beautiful corners of this book

Emerie: Another woman with trauma. She sees Nesta enter her store, of course she knows who she is, yet she doesn’t judge her. Nesta asks about making the fatigues warmer, Emerie says she’ll ask, but it’s costly. Nesta says then she can’t afford it, admits that she was cut off, Emerie, as a stranger, doesn’t judge her. She says she could make them anyway and she can pay her as she can. Because no one should feel cold. It’s simple, irrelevant. Nesta wouldn’t freeze to death, she as a stranger has no obligation to help, it’s a simple reasoning. “You shouldn’t feel cold”. It’s enough for her to help Nesta. Something as mundane as feeling cold. She asks her to join her for a meal. And Nesta asks her if she would join the training, which Emerie refuses. and Nesta blurts out that she didn’t take her for a coward. And later, Nesta sends her the herbs she wishes to get which she can’t get often because of her location, and it’s a message of “you too deserve to see what’s best in the world, to go out and experience the beautiful parts and live, not just exist”. So Emerie goes to training with her as well, and they bond over romance novels. Emerie also reaches a point where she opens up about her own trauma, and tells the truth about what she faced and her survival. This girl who is 50-something at least, who has never had friends, living a lonely secluded life, finally found someone who was trustworthy enough to be around and form a bond with. As for the fact that she is a PoC, and the illyrians are portrayed as this group of savages who abuse their women and their women have no say in their lives and futures and how they clip their women’s wings, when wings, wingspan and wingplay heavily imply that wings are erogenous parts of the body and wing clipping seems to be the equivalent of Circumcision, which again so happens to be done by the “PoC savages who abuse their women”, hits a whole lot as fucking racist and xenophobic. PoC deserve a storyline where they’re not viewed as the villains.

Azriel: I loved his relationship with Nesta. He was the best chaperon™️, he never spoke in judgement toward her. There was a silent understanding between them. However, I’m not against him showing his feelings toward Elain or her toward him. It’s fine, if that’s what they both want. I don’t think Lucien is the type to call for a blood duel. He simply brings her presents and attends when invited, he doesn’t force himself on her and keeps his distance. However I did hate that Azriel took the necklace and gave it to Gwyn, as a secondhand. I know his only intention was to make her smile but the necklace wasn’t meant for her. It’s not a trial by error, he can’t just keep trying out with different women every time he fails with one. And I’ll just leave this here.

The elephant in the room: the entire IC is involved in this, them all blaming Nesta, framing her as the wrong person, when she told Feyre about the dangers of her pregnancy? I don’t care if she did it while she was angry, her heart was in the right place. She got hurt from them deciding her fate without her involvement, voting on her, not once, but twice, about her fate because she wasn’t fast enough to deal with her trauma, then again when deciding if she should know about what she did with her own power and the weapons. and she showed Feyre what was really at play. Protecting her from what she faced with the Inner Circle. Just because she was angry while doing it does not mean she did it out of spite. She did it to expose them, specially Amren at that point. But I don’t get how it was twisted to “because she wanted to hurt Feyre”. She wasn’t even angry at Feyre. But you all would rather suck up to the Inner Circle than confront the fact that they’re hypocrites and liars with a propaganda. They’re evil. They fear Nesta using her power to seize control of everyone because it’s how THEY are. With all this High King crap. Basically colonization dreams. With how they press rank whenever it suits them, and lie about the law to win arguments. It’s because those who are inherently bad think everyone is bad just like them.

Other Elephants in the room which have been here a long time: the thing with blaming Nesta for not being the breadwinner… I could never get it. Some have money-earning skills, others don’t. She, at the point of her life when she was human, was only trained in dancing and appealing to men socially so she could uplift the family’s social status. She couldn’t hunt. Feyre could. And NEITHER, should’ve been the breadwinner. Nesta was willing to starve to death if it would push her father to do something. Feyre wasn’t willing to wait and starve or watch anyone starve. But it doesn’t mean Nesta was at fault. She was only 3 years older than Feyre. Let’s leave the “the oldest child has to step in for the parents when the parents fail” mentality in the past. It’s ridiculous. Nesta was under no obligation to be the breadwinner. And she suffered self-flagellation regularly for letting Feyre walk out there and hunt. But she literally had no skills that when she thought of something to do, she could only think of selling herself on the streets. The parents were abusive, both of them. Favoring one child over the other and planting rivalry between the siblings. “i love you” means nothing. NOTHING, when there is no action to prove it. And if anything, this book made me realize that Nesta was never okay. She was never in a good place mentally. I mean, I knew, but this book just proved it. Her mother favored her alright, but it was not in a loving way. She simply exploited her to climb the social ladder. She didn’t give her love, she gave her instructions. She enabled the grandmother to beat her, and instill some “harsher punishments” one of which Nesta still holds the scars for. She was called worthless, as a child. Why? Because she made a wrong step in a dance. She was physically and verbally abused, and her mother let it happen. Yet she was the only one who would give Nesta the time of day so Nesta still loved her. As a child, her mother was the only person who showed interest in her and she clung to. However twisted it was, it’s the only love she ever got. The only love she knew. Then she lost her. and later the family also lost their wealth. So all she was taught to do her entire life suddenly became meaningless because she can’t achieve what her mother “trained” her to do. And we know the rest of the story. She never felt at home, not even when her mother lived and she still had that wealth. She admitted as much. She was never fine. She might’ve appeared the part, but it was never true. And since she was so good at masking her emotions, nobody was the wiser.

side note: As for her power being the “bare minimum” now, there better not be a plothole, since Rhysand couldn’t contain merely the “surface of her power” because it was too much. and if that’s all she retained, then it’s good enough for me.

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brockadoodles · 3 years

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ho ho hopefully - t. seguin

AN: This is like... PURE fluff. Pure soft, Christmas themed, fluffy fluff with our resident idiot, Segs. But like, kind of what we deserve for Christmas, no? Totally based on the BEST Christmas song in existence, Ho Ho Hopefully, by the Maine. Tagging the seggy queen @texanstarslove in this one, since I think she’ll enjoy it. It’s a bit shorter than most, but let me know what you think!

Word Count: 2222

Warnings: None.

December first, I’m in a foreign state, I’m running late, I’m all alone, wishing I was home with you, baby.

It shouldn’t have mattered. It shouldn’t have been a big deal to miss it. It was one year, objectively, you could start on December second, or third, or fourth, or all the way up until Christmas Day and it shouldn’t matter. But there was something about December first, how the first signs of Christmas would start popping up, with lights beginning to pop up on homes and trees slowly starting to be seen in the windows, families decorating together. You probably liked December first more than you even liked Christmas because something about that transitional time from autumn scenery into snow-covered streets that actually made sense was comforting, and with everything going on in your life as of late, the only thing you wanted was to be home on December first, with him.

Tyler knew that December first was special. He knew from the years of knowing and falling in love with you how your eyes lit up at the smallest things, like the first snowfall of the season, even though Vancouver rarely got snow. He knew from the way his own heartbeat faster around you that first year you insisted he help you with a tree, his own love for you he was trying to keep at bay trickling through to the surface. He knew that being home with you was inarguably the one thing you wanted, and there he was stuck in an airport lounge in Boston feeling the farthest away from you he could possibly feel on your favorite day of the year.

Tyler looked out the window. His eyes were still as he watched the storm get worse and worse outside. Muffled airport announcements in monotone voices announcing delay after delay in flights. Boston was an eight and a half hour flight from Vancouver, and reality was settling in that his chance at maybe, just maybe making it to you with an hour to spare was steadily decreasing with each inch of snow that was falling onto the ground.

Tyler knew when you started dating that it would be hard. The distance between Dallas and Vancouver was already a hurdle, but the added layer of his career and your own job made the relationship seem nearly impossible. It felt at times like you were two people dangling from a rope, trying to balance too many things at once simply just to be together. But he’d hear your soft voice on the phone, “I can’t wait to see you” murmuring from your lips and it made it all worth it, it made the time difference, the traveling, and the hardships worth it anytime you’d utter those words.

He wasn’t even entirely sure how it happened, him falling so hard for someone who was almost always half a world away. Everyone in his life cautioned him against it, saying that there was no way it could work, you’re too different of people and too different of lives and it wasn’t rational. But Tyler didn’t care to be rational, because you were his best irrational choice he had ever made, and he knew he was lucky that he got to love you.

Tyler held his head in his hands and tried to tell himself that it would be okay. He was still getting to see you later that month for Christmas and that was what mattered. But he also couldn’t help being unfathomably irritated at the bad weather that he couldn’t control, the watered-down shitty Dunkin coffee sitting next to him, and the repetitive cycle of delayed flight announcements ruining what was supposed to be an incredible surprise. The Stars had been in Boston finishing up a long road trip where they would now have two days off before a short home stretch of games. The timing had lined up perfectly so that if he flew straight from Boston to Vancouver, he’d get almost two days with you, one of which being your favorite day of the year. But now as he sat in the terminal, the hope of seeing you just kept dwindling bit by bit, and he was coming to the deafening realization that maybe it just wasn’t meant to work out.

“Any news?” Tyler turned his head quickly at the voice coming from his left. Jamie sat down next to his teammate with a soft frown on his face. Tyler just shook his head and took a sip of his coffee, growing more irritated by the minute. The only thing getting him through it was knowing that even though his surprise was crumbling, you at least couldn’t be disappointed in it since you had no idea he was even planning to come in the first place. But what Tyler didn’t know was that Jamie Benn loved a lot of things, one of which being a classic romantic Christmas surprise, and you had been scheming up a surprise of your own.

It was a last minute surprise, an idea that you had panickingly called Jamie over just the week prior. You had been going through what might have been the worst day you’d had in months, one of those days where every single event felt like the worst thing in the world. You remember curling up on your couch and crying as you looked through the calendar and Tyler’s schedule, trying to piece together how you could swing a surprise visit between their pre-Christmas packed schedule and your own lack of vacation time from work. It felt like the pieces weren’t fitting, and you were desperate to try. So that’s when you called Jamie, and he patiently combed through the practice schedule with you, helped you book a flight and promised to keep it an absolute secret from your boyfriend.

The thing that Tyler didn’t know was that you were also sitting in an airport terminal with a shitty coffee in your hand, waiting anxiously for a flight of your own, the first flight of two that in six and a half hours time would land you back in the lone star state. The main difference was that there was no snow where you were, and all that you had to do was board the plane and show up, Jamie said he would take care of the rest.

You had everything worked out, Jamie had made sure he wouldn’t suspect anything, his dog sitter knew when you were coming, and you had even packed a goofy Christmas sweater for him to wear while you hopefully decorated together. Long-distance with him was hard, but when the schedule seemed to allow for a quick visit, you gladly took what you could get, willingly ready to be tired from the flights even if it meant just a few hours with him.

Each visit you found yourself breaking more and more when it ended, the days between were starting to feel dreaded. Your work was no longer enjoyable. It felt like you were stagnant in Vancouver, with most of your heart nestled safely in whatever city Tyler happened to be in that night. If you were honest with yourself, you knew that this was going to burn out, the distance was going to take its toll on the both of you, and sitting in that airport ready to go see him for the first time in a few weeks, you found yourself thinking for the first time about the idea of not coming back to Vancouver.

Your phone rang in your hand, Tyler’s photo filling up the screen. You set your coffee down and slid your thumb across to answer, smiling slightly in excitement.

“Hey.” you hummed, hoping that your headphones would drown out any announcements about flights that were periodically coming through the speakers around you. The airport was busy, as was to be expected this time of year, but you had worked hard to keep this a secret from him and the last thing you wanted was a muffled airport announcement blowing the surprise fifteen minutes before you were set to get on a fight.

“Hi, baby.” He sighed. You could tell something was off, you could always tell. You and Tyler knew each other so well, the distance between you forcing you both to pick up on things between each other. The things that were highs and the shifts in tone that indicated something was wrong, you both knew. You had memorized all of his little habits, from the typical stuff like how he preferred apples in his oats or how he had to nap at the same time before every game, to the things that people who didn’t know him didn’t have the privilege to see. Like the way he lit up when his sisters would call, or how he was really hard on himself, even when he shouldn’t be. You just knew him, all of his good things and all of his flaws and you loved him endlessly through all of it. You frowned slightly and opened your mouth to speak but he started before you could.

“I’m heading back to Dallas. Our flight was delayed, big snowstorm here.” He groaned. He hated that he was telling you this without entirely telling you why he was upset. But Jamie was next to him, and even if Tyler didn’t want to believe that he was right, deep down he knew the surprise wasn’t going to work, and as much as it sucked, he needed to just go back to Dallas and accept the fact that he would have to wait a few more weeks to see you not through a phone screen.

“I just really fucking miss you.” He admitted and your heart cracked. You could hear in his voice how bad it was, and it only strengthened the feeling of stopping all of the distance between you altogether.

“I miss you, too, bub. But, only a couple of more weeks.” You raised the tenor of your voice a bit, hoping that it would get him a bit excited about Christmas together.

“Yeah, wish it was sooner, though.”

You talked with Tyler for a few more minutes, tapping your foot slightly as you waited for your boarding number to be called. When you ended the call and boarded your flight, that feeling came back. The feeling of wondering if Vancouver could really truly be your home anymore when half of your soul was in Dallas. You spent the whole flight thinking about it, even though deep down you had no doubts about your decision. All it took to confirm it was his strained voice on the other end of the line, the pent of frustrations he was feeling about missing you just as much as you missed him.

Tyler carried his bags through the entryway, exhaustion finally setting in right next to his already bad mood. Gerry, Marshall, and Cash came running up to him, excited to see him and lifting his spirits just enough as he greeted them and then combed through his mail that was sitting on the table. He tossed his bags down and kicked off his shoes, not wanting to bother with taking them upstairs yet. He knew that the dog sitter had left, he had told her when he was coming in. He was honestly looking forward to just relaxing on his couch, face-timing you, and going to sleep. He was supposed to be in Vancouver, walking up to your door and seeing you, and he didn’t have it in him to not sulk about that.

He walked toward the kitchen, freezing a bit when he saw bags of Christmas decorations on the counter. He poked around, sifting through the various bags wondering who had dropped them off or if he had somehow placed an order for Christmas decorations that he forgot about. He got to one bag, a small brown one with a ribbon on the side. It was probably a gift, but when he saw the note with his name scribbled on the front he quickly opened it.

We go together like the winter and a sweater <3

He recognized your handwriting immediately as he opened the bag, pulling out a bright red sweater, laughing softly at the horrible snow-related Christmas pun that was screen printed on the front. He felt warm at how you somehow must have known he needed the pick me up. He kept combing through the bags, various ornaments, and knickknacks, and other decors were littered throughout them. He knew it was you, he wasn’t sure how you coordinated this but he knew you were the reason it looked like Christmas was about to throw up in his kitchen. He smiled a bit, his bad mood lifting when he realized what this probably meant. You probably wanted to decorate on facetime together, a compromise for not being able to actually be with each other and the idea melted his heart.

Tyler walked over to the fridge, cracking open a beer as he unlocked his phone to call you. As the phone was ringing, the dogs started barking like crazy, running back from the kitchen to the front door. He didn’t think much of it until he nearly dropped his phone when he heard your voice.

“Shh, shh, hi boys. Hi! Oh my gosh, hi Gerry.” You laughed, petting each of the dogs as you walked further into the house. You had takeout in your hands and were so focused on not dropping it from the dog’s excitement that you didn’t even realize Tyler’s bags were sitting against the wall in the entryway.

“You’re here.” You jumped at the sound of his voice, smiling big as he walked over to where you were standing. You were wearing one of his sweatshirts, his name sprawled across your back, a sight that he never grew tired of seeing and you were carrying bags of what appeared to be take out in your arms. You had slippers on and your hair up, an indication of how relaxed you were. He couldn’t help but internally groan, seeing how comfortable you were in his house, the one he wanted to be your home, too. You quickly set the food on the kitchen table, meeting him halfway. He pulled you in tight and you listened to his heart beating against your ear.

“Fuck, I can’t believe you’re really here. I was going to surprise you.” He whispered, tilting your head up to kiss you. You smiled into the kiss, your heart already telling you what you needed to talk to him about. You didn’t have any doubts about it anymore. Dallas was where you needed to be. It was where Tyler needed you to be, and standing there in his kitchen with Christmas decorations littered all around you and him holding you like this, you were ready. Every buildup to this moment had led you here, in slippers in his kitchen ready to ask him to take another step with you, hoping that he’d grab your hand as he did so.

“I’m really here. Jamie actually helped, he made sure I could get in and made sure you had no idea.” Tyler had never been more appreciative of his best friend. He should have known Jamie would have a hand in a surprise like this, this had secret softie Jamie Benn written all over it, and he adored you, often warning Tyler not to fuck it up with you.

“Remind me to thank him, because wow. Best surprise ever, honestly.” He melted into you. He didn’t care if it was cheesy, or something straight from a bad Christmas movie. He’d watch 100 of those Lifetime movies because the feeling he was experiencing now with you in his arms was probably the exact emotion those cliche Christmas films tried to convey.

“Tyler, I wanted to ask you something.” You said, pulling back just enough to look at him.

“Anything.” He kissed you once more, still in disbelief that you had pulled off a surprise when his had fallen so flat.

“I don’t want to do this anymore, the missed calls, the flights, all of it. I just want to be here, all the time with you.” You smiled. Your stomach was bubbling with nerves as you studied his face for any reaction or reason that maybe he wasn’t ready for that yet. It would be complicated, figuring out how to actually stay in Dallas and be together. But a strenuous Visa application was the least of your worries if it meant that you’d finally get to be with him. Tyler grinned, picking you up and setting you on the table, kissing you hard as he stood between your legs.

“Please tell me that means you want to move here.” He mumbled against your lips. You just kissed him once more.

“There’s nothing else I want. Well I kind of want the food I brought, and maybe we could decorate for Christmas since it’s my favorite day, but like, definitely want to move here the most.” You laughed slightly as you spoke. Tyler just smiled at you, a breathtaking, heartfelt smile that made butterflies swirl around in your stomach. It was an exciting step in your relationship, and you couldn’t help but think about how much you loved December first again, this time for a new reason, because now it was the signifier in a new start with the person you loved. You didn’t care that it was only December first, because to you, this was better than anything you could have received on Christmas Day.

#honeslty look at me adding no angst #shocker #tyler seguin #tyler seguin imagine #tyler seguin x reader #tyler seguin fic #nhl imagine #nhl fic

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duxhess-kryzewan · 3 years

Note

obi wan gets caught in a lie? can be as heavy/light as you want

A/n: hello!! im so sorry for the sudden disappearanc, but im back and will hopefully be posting regularly again!! (also, i didnt quite know how to write a scenario with him lying to satine, so hopefully this stays as true to the characters as possible)

- White Lies -

Satine had spent a large portion of her youth biting her nails.

She knew it was a nasty habit. Aside from it being unsanitary, it was beyond improper for a lady - especially one of nobility - to do so. It was only during her time on the run with Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan that she managed to stop. Partly because she was so distracted by her concern for her people, and partly because trekking through the wilderness of various planets tended to get her hands dirty.

Yet here she stood, in the middle of her Coruscant apartment, chewing absentmindedly on her nails, not caring in the slightest that years of work to break the habit had all been for nothing.

She had been on the planet for two days now, both of them consumed with Senate proposals and a barrage of questions for the neutral systems, most of which were nothing more than ploys to side with the republic. Even in the face of aggressive senators though, Satine had held her ground. While she may be a pacifist, she was still a Mandalorian, and a Mandalorian never backed down from a fight. She was no exception. There wasn't much that shook her these days.

Except, perhaps, the absence of Obi-Wan.

He had promised her he'd be there before the sun set, but the city had been shrouded in darkness for hours now and he was no where to be found. She only commed him twice - not wanting to come off as overbearing - but it was beyond unusual for him not to follow through with his word.

So she commed Padme, the only person who wouldn't question her, and asked if she had seen or heard from him.

"I haven't," The younger woman said, "Anakin hasn't came home yet for me to ask him. If I hear from either of them I'll be sure to let you know."

"Thank you." Satine said before ending the transmission.

So she paced, chewing on her nails and trying her best not to think of the worst possible scenario. He was a Jedi, she rationalized, even if something did happen he was more than capable of taking care of himself.

It didn't help ease her mind.

So when the familiar beeping of a keypad and sound of her door opening sounded through the apartment she couldn't have been more relieved.

She rushed to meet him, barely giving him enough time to shut the door before she threw her arms around his shoulders.

He cradled her against him in response, his hands winding around her tiny frame. She didn't need to be in tune with the force to feel the exhaustion radiating off of him. Yes, something had certainly happened, and it had drained him.

"Are you alright?" Satine asks, pulling away just enough to scan her eyes over him, searching for any kind of wound or otherwise out of place detail.

"I'm fine," He says, reaching out and tucking a bit of stray hair behind her ear, "It's been a challenging day. The council was relentlessly questioning Anakin and I about the events of our most recent mission and then I got tied up with him at Padme's."

Her blood suddenly runs cold, her body all but frozen in his grasp and it took her a moment to truly process what he had just told her.

She pulls away from his grasp and takes a step back, "You weren't at Padme's."

Obi-Wan pauses, mouth slightly agape, a mouthful of words he was planning on saying frozen on the tip of his tongue. If she looked hard enough she's sure she could see them dancing around, begging to be spoken out into the world.

"I commed over there Obi-Wan," She says, "You weren't at Padme's."

He already knew that, of course. His eyes always betrayed him. Not that he was keeping up the charade; he knew he had been caught. There was no point in pretending now.

"You lied to me," Satine says, not bothering to hide the hurt and confusion in her voice, "Why would you..."

She trails off, unable to bring herself to finish the question. Obi-Wan didn't lie to her. Not ever. Faking his death aside, he had never been anything less than honest with her.

"Satine I..." He too is at a loss for words, eyes wide and full of something unfamiliar. Fear, perhaps? Worry about what the consequences of his falsehood? It makes her feel sick either way.

"Where were you?"

"Please Satine, I promise you, it wasn't anything you need worry about. You know that I would never-" He paused, suddenly unable to finish his statement.

Cheat on her? Yes, she was fairly confident that would never happen. Even in light of his lie she knows without a doubt that was a line that would never be crossed.

"No, you wouldn't." She grants, "But I also thought you would never lie to me. I thought we were honest with one another despite the consequences."

His eyes fill with sadness; a mirage of guilt that she's never seen before and if her heart wasn't already hurting she's sure it would have broken for him all the more.

"I- of course. You're right. I should have never..." He sucks in a shaky breath, "There was an incident. Two really. Bail Organa and Lothals senator were attacked by separatist assassins. They were working on your neutral systems proposal when it happened. It's suspected they wanted to sabotage your place with the Senate. I didn't want to worry you. That's all, I swear it."

Dizziness washes over her. Of course she was always at risk for an attack on her and her beliefs, and of course Obi-Wan tries to shelter her from the horrors of the galaxy despite the fact that she's keenly aware of the atrocities transpiring around her.

"Obi-Wan.."

"That's all it was Satine, I swear. I didn't want to upset you with the news."

"All the same, you lied to me. And you made it look easy Obi-Wan, like it was nothing to you."

He closes his eyes, her words hitting him like a slap in the face and its almost too much for her to bare. As if her words physically stunned him.

"I have to be a good liar, you know that. I lie to the council every time they question the nature of our relationship. I lie to them, but not to you." His voice was steady, more assured than it had been before.

"But you just did."

She wants to stop; wants so badly to calm down and forget about this, but she can't bring herself to do it. Not when it felt like her trust had been violated. There were too many people in her life - valued friends and allies - who had deceived her in the past. Her trust had began wavering amongst the people who crossed her path, but never in Obi-Wan.

He can't look at her and it both breaks her heart and infuriates her more.

"You're right," He says, "And I'm sorry. You've always had that confidence in me and I broke that trust."

"You've never lied to me before," She says, "And it matters that you did it so well, how can I-" She swallows the sudden threat of a sob, "How can I know that this was the only time?"

The words come clawing their way out of her mouth and it stung more than she could have imagined. And maybe she was being unfair; maybe he hadn't thought about how much weight such a simple lie would carry, but it hurt her in places she didn't recognize.

"You know me Satine, you know I would never lie to you about something that really mattered." He counters, voice laced with a twinge of frustration.

Her eyes narrow, "And what matters and what doesn't?"

They hadn't fought in months; never fought like this at all. It wasn't unusual for a snide comment to be thrown out here or there, and they certain had their fair share of disagreements, but this? This was something entirely new and she didn't know what to do with it.

"I don't know what you want me to say other than I'm sorry."

She felt dizzy. Trust was something that she valued more than anything. Obi-Wan was the last person she ever thought would betray that. Regardless of the severity of his lie, it stung more than she could have imagined.

She grabs her cloak without a second thought.

"I'm going," She states, "I need to get out for a bit."

He suddenly looks panicked, and for a moment she actually reconsiders leaving, but she knows ultimately its better for her to go calm herself down before she truly said something she didn't mean.

"Satine, please."

She sighs, "I'm coming back, Obi-Wan. I need to go clear my head."

"Where are you going?"

"Padme's. Back to Mandalore early perhaps."

His eyes grow sadder when she mentions the latter, "Satine…"

She's out the door before he can finish his protest.

---

The streets of Coruscant were becoming more and more familiar to her with every visit, though she would hesitate to really claim she knew her way around anywhere aside from the heart of the city. Regardless of that fact, she wandered the streets without much care.

Instinctively she wrapped her arms around herself, pressing tightly against her rib cage. It felt like her bones were about to crack open, her heart having experienced too many emotions in such a short period of time. From worry to hurt to anger. It was all too much.

She had been deceived and lied too more times than she could count. But Obi-Wan, her shining Jedi Knight, never had. Not until now.

She stops abruptly, her thoughts suddenly hitting her full force once more with his lie. It hurts her. Frightens her, even, the way her anger had crept into her mind and overtook all rational thinking.

Why would he lie to her? Why would he do the one thing he knew would break her heart more than anything else?

Because he protects you from what he thinks you shouldn't have to see.

Satine frowns, trying to shove the thought out of her mind. But it was useless. She knew it was the truth, that he had always done his best to shield her from dangers and horrors alike. In his mind, she had seen enough wicked things in her youth and endured more attempts on her life than she should have had too. Obi-Wan had always been trying, whether she realized it or not, to keep her from baring more weight.

But the question lingers in the back of her mind; had he lied to her before?

You know he hasn't, She thinks, The look in his eyes when you even suggested it was all the proof you needed.

Another ache soars through her chest. She trusted him. And when she really digs deep down in herself, she knows that she still does. Obi-Wan Kenobi is still the person she trusts most.

So why didn't the pain in her chest fade? She wasn't angry anymore, not really. The cool night air and desolate streets provided release from whatever vexations and grief burrowed within her, and yet something dismal still gnawed at her.

Then the realization hit her.

Obi-Wans absence was the source of her heartache.

She had fled, a momentary lapse in judgement in an effort to calm down, and left him standing in the wreckage of their little time together. They would have to part ways in two days time, and she had effectively cut that even shorter.

She turns around without a second thought.

When she steps through the door she finds him in the same spot she left him in, perched on the floor with his eyes closed, legs crossed in the all too familiar pose of meditation. It didn't surprise her. He often did so to sort out his feelings.

The sound of the door didn't cause him to move, nor did the sound of her footsteps coming towards him. He only opened his eyes when she crouched down onto the floor and all but threw herself against him.

He instinctively envelopes her in a hug, cradling her in his arms as they sat on the floor.

"I'm sorry," Satine says, nuzzling her nose against the side of his head, "I'm sorry."

"You have nothing to be sorry for," He murmurs, "I should have just told you from the start. I'm sorry to have deceived you."

She feels guilty all over again. Obi-Wan carried often carried the weight of the galaxy on his shoulders. The last thing she wanted was to add to that.

"No, I-" She drops her cheek against the top of his head and tightens her hold on him, "I shouldn't have reacted the way I did. It was unfair of me. I shouldn't have gotten upset and I certainly shouldn't have walked out. It was wrong on my part."

She often wonders what life would be like if they weren't so tied to their duties. If she weren't born a duchess and he not born a Jedi. If they were simply Ben and Satine, a couple tucked away in a quiet corner of the Galaxy. Would they have fights like this? Or would they bicker over mundane things? Certainly their quarrels would never be as a result of governing bodies or separatists attacks. It would be nice, she thinks, to be so carefree when they were together.

"I've never lied to you before." He tells her, gripping her hand in his own.

"I know you haven't."

"I won't do it again."

"I know."

"Do you forgive me?"

She pulls away from him, worming her way out from his arms enough to look him in the eyes.

"There's nothing to forgive my dear."

Her hands come up to cradle his face, thumbs brushing over his auburn stubble.

"I need you to say it," He tells her, covering her hand with one of his own, "For my own peace of mind."

She smiles softly, "I forgive you."

Wouldn’t she always?

#obitine #obi wan kenobi #obi wan x satine #obitine fanfic #obitine fanfiction #obitine prompt #obitine fluff #obi wan is just a nervous wreck #satine is just mad

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amyscascadingtabs · 3 years

Text

expecto patronum

Post-The Fugitive. Jake and Amy talk Harry Potter, patronuses, and love.

✨read on ao3 ✨

“Hey, babe, I’m home!”

The door makes a distinctive clicking noise behind Jake as he locks it. It’s only one of the many sounds he’s getting used to; his new home is full of them, and they’ve become much more noticeable now that he’s here every day. He’s known his way around this apartment for a long time, but living there, permanently, is different. It’s a good kind of different, though.

“In here!” Amy shouts from her – from their – bedroom, and Jake hurries to hang up his jacket and bag before going to greet his girlfriend.

He’s coming home late tonight. A questioning at work dragged over after a surprise confession, and as exciting as those are, Jake’s bitter over missing dinner and Property Brothers with Amy. He half hadn't expected her to be awake still, but once he was finally free to text her that he was on his way home, she replied straight away to tell him she'd be waiting. Rosa had teased him about how wide he’d been smiling, but Jake hadn’t found it in him to care.

Amy’s laying on her stomach in bed with a thick book leaned against the pillow, resting her chin against one hand as she reads and holding up the cover with her other. Jake recognizes the book; it’s Prisoner of Azkaban, the third book in the Harry Potter series. He was reading it himself a few weeks ago.

“Ah, Harry Potter. Good choice.”

Amy closes the book against her index finger and looks up at him. “Yeah, you inspired me. How was work?”

“We got a confession,” he grins. “It was dope. Guy just started rambling, pretty much told us his whole life story for some reason, and now we have him. I even got to call the victim’s mom, tell her the news.”

“Sounds like a good day, then.”

“Yeah. Missed seeing you, though.”

“You see me all the time, babe. We live and work together.”

“I know, so it makes me feel even weirder when I don't!”

Amy laughs, letting out that adorable chortling sound he only ever hears when they're alone. Then she looks back to her book, scooching closer to her preferred side of the bed, and Jake takes that as an instruction to change into pajamas so he can join her.

Any regular night, he would probably have taken time to shower and brush his teeth first, but it's been a long day. He simply undresses instead, smirking as he notices Amy’s subtle side glance when he takes off his shirt. This, these small moments of appreciation between them, is yet another one of the parts he loves most about sharing a life with her – it’s nearly midnight, he’s exhausted and he remembers Amy mentioning starting her period, so sex is almost guaranteed to be off the table – but she still makes him feel attractive, makes him feel confident and wanted. He never realized how much that being an equal exchange meant to him before their relationship.

“So,” he asks her, “where are you up to in the book, then?”

“Almost finished the whole thing,” she says, looking very proud of herself. “I’m at the time-turner chapter. Harry thinks he saw his dad cast a patronus from the other side of the lake, but then he realizes just saw himself.”

“Man, that part was so sad.”

“You think so?”

“Yeah!” Jake huffs, crawling underneath the covers. “I just… felt for him, you know? He wishes he could meet his parents, just once, even if he knows it's impossible. He wants this family he never had.”

“It makes you realize how in the end, he's just a kid. A brave kid, but a kid.”

“A kid in desperate need of therapy.”

“Amen,” says Amy, flipping a page. “Hogwarts mental health services do seem to be severely lacking. Did you know the dementors were inspired by the author’s own experiences with depression, by the way?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Dark creatures with the power to bring out all the worst memories in your head, making you feel like you’ll never be happy again. Like you can’t even remember what it’s like. And the only way to defeat them is to hold onto the very happiest moments of your life and create a shield out of them.”

“Kind of deep for a kid's book,” Jake reflects, and Amy nods.

“Maybe. But it's not pushed on them, either. It's a way for them to understand, without knowing that they're understanding. I always loved that about the Harry Potter books,” she says, a sudden dreamy look in her eyes. “They're just… intelligent.”

Jake means to agree with her, but then his body remembers he's been at work for the entire day, and out comes an embarrassingly big yawn that makes Amy laugh.

“Long day? I can read to you if you want.”

“Dreamgirl,” he mumbles. Amy rolls her eyes, but then she reaches out to pull him closer, her left hand running through his hair as she holds the book with her right, and he can see her smiling.

Jake's not sure how long she's reading for. He loses track of time, but frankly, he doesn’t mind. Amy's reading voice is low, peaceful enough to relax him but varied enough to entice him at the same time. Her fingers keep brushing through his curls as she reads, tracing soft circles on his scalp. He listens to her read the part where Harry and Hermione fly on Buckbeak to rescue Sirius, and it doesn't matter that he read the book himself just a few weeks ago, because he could listen to her voice forever.

He gets to do that now, he realizes, because they live together now. It may only have been a week, and not completely without its challenges, but it already feels like one of the best decisions of his life. Even though they were spending almost every night together before as well, there’s something special about coming home and Amy already being there. Not because they’ve made specific plans for her to be, but because that’s the norm, because home is the same place for the two of them now. There’s something intimate about getting to share a routine with her, working out a system for who gets the bathroom when in the morning, adding stuff onto the same grocery list. Even seeing his t-shirts next to hers in the dresser puts a smile on his face in the morning. It feels grown-up, and it feels stable, and it feels right.

He wonders sometimes if he could have imagined this the night she knocked on his door to tell him screw light and breezy. Honestly, he probably could have, even if he was too proud to admit it to himself in the beginning. But after a year and a half of dating, of which six excruciating months were spent apart (and hopefully no more will ever be, he thinks), Jake couldn’t care less about pride. He loves Amy Santiago, and he wants to spend all the time he can with her, give her everything and share his life with her for as long as she’ll let him. That, if anything, makes him proud. In any case, it’s like he said that first night undercover as Johnny and Dora – there’s really no one else’s opinion he cares about more than hers.

Amy finishes the chapter, reaching for a bookmark before putting the book on her nightstand.

“There,” she laughs. “That’s your goodnight story.”

“Mm, one more chapter.”

“Mm, no. It’s late, babe.”

“I have a question,” he says then, knowing it’ll garner her attention and give him some more treasured quality time before they really have to go to sleep. Amy raises an eyebrow and shakes her head lovingly at him, but then she nods. “Harry’s patronus is a stag, right? Like his dad’s animagus form. And in the fifth book, Hermione has an otter, and Ron some kind of dog.”

“A Jack Russell terrier. Yeah, why?”

“How is your patronus determined? Like… how does it know?”

“It’s supposed to reflect your innermost personality,” she answers, not missing a beat. “It represents something about you that makes you who you are. Something that gives you strength, I would say. So for Harry, that would be the thought of his parents fighting for him.”

“I like that,” Jake says. “A lot of things in that universe are just grossly poetic though, aren't they?”

This makes Amy chuckle. “Very true.”

“What do you think yours would be?”

“Oh. Hmm.” She presses her lips together. “I don't know. What do you think?”

“We could find out,” He grins, reaching for his phone. “I’m sure there's a BuzzFeed quiz.”

He's right – and although Amy rolls her eyes at him at first, they end up having a laugh at the quiz, picking the options they think best suit the other one and shrugging when the results suggest Amy’s would be a horse, and Jake’s a stag.

“The descriptions are pretty accurate, though,” Amy says, reading from Jake’s phone. “Brave and fearless, and your greatest asset is your ability to love. Sometimes you get a bit hot-headed and impatient –” Jake fake-gasps. “– but your friends are your source of peace, getting you through the good and bad.”

“I still think it should be a ninja turtle,” he mutters. “But yours is true, too. Loyal, smart, underrated badass.”

“It just gave us the same patronuses as Harry and Ginny.” Amy smiles. “They do get together later, so I guess that works.”

“Spoilers! I haven’t gotten to that part yet!”

“Oh, come on, it’s really obvious.” She kisses the pouting grimace off of his face. “Different question. What memory would you use to cast your patronus?”

“I have thought about that,” he confesses, blushing. “It’s a three-way tie. The first time you told me you loved me. That evening when you stood outside my door and told me you wanted to be with me, for reals. Maybe even our first date, after the bet. All of those, together… I think they’d make a damn good patronus.”

“Wow.” Amy almost looks taken aback, like she wasn’t expecting that moment of sincerity. “I’m surprised you didn’t just say the first time we had sex or something.”

“Would you have wanted me to say that? Wait, is that yours? Santiago –”

“Oh my god, obviously not –”

“Obviously? Wow, hurtful, much –”

“Just let me finish!”

“Title of –”

“Stop!” Amy’s shaking with laughter, holding her hand on top of his mouth just for a second. “Stop, stop. What I meant to say was that it’s the same for me. That’s what I’d think of, too.”

“Even the bet? Even though you lost?”

“Yes, babe. Even though I lost.”

“So it wouldn’t be the first time we had sex, then.”

She smirks. “We’ve had better since.”

Then she leans over him, and her lips are on his, insistent but soft at once. His heartbeat’s speeding by the time she pulls away, and it satisfies him to see that her face is a little flushed, too.

“For the record,” Jake mumbles as she rests her head on his chest after, “this, right here – would also work for a damn good patronus.”

“Oh, yeah. No dementor would stand a chance.”

“Mm. You’re a nerd, but I love you.”

“I love you, too. Goodnight, babe.”

“Goodnight,” he whispers, wrapping his arms around her and allowing himself a brief moment to revel in the feeling that’s started growing in him recently.

Forever, this could be forever.

#my writing #b99 #brooklyn nine-nine #peraltiago #jake x amy #b99 fic #jake x amy fanfiction #peraltiago fanfiction #this is so self-indulgent wow #harry potter

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bleeveintherun · 2 years

Text

I’m back pt. 2

Personal life

(Oct-Nov) After escaping a bad, exploitative internship, I managed to land a legitimate internship with BallotReady in the month and a half leading up to the election. They actually paid me and the work was a lot more relevant to my degree. I loved feeling like I made a difference for voter turnout and spent the election day(s) stress baking and glued to the television. What a time that was!

(Nov-Feb) I had trouble finding an internship/job after that since holiday season hit, but I think that was the period where I had time to really train hard. I spent this period applying to paid internships and jobs.

(Feb-Jun) An old friend who worked as an admin at my high school reached out and told me a local middle school was looking for a few part time teaching assistants. The pay was good (this was a very fancy middle school) and working at a school would enable me to get vaccinated, so I gladly applied. The job wasn’t too bad, but it gave me a new respect for middle school teachers. Most of the kids were lovely and some still reach out to me for guidance. Sometime in April, I received an invitation to apply for a job based on an intern application I had sent in. I applied and after a pretty extensive interview process, I got the job! The job felt like it was made for me. It involves democracy protection, which I’m super passionate about and has me working with a legal team, which is great experience.

(Jun-Aug) I started my first full-time job remotely and began apartment hunting, which was extremely stressful, especially since I was planning to move across the country. I can truly say that I like all of my co-workers. They are all really great, highly accomplished people and sometimes it’s a little intimidating! It’s really starting to sink in that the work we’re doing is actually very impactful. At the same time, my friend is having a hard time processing a few things, and I’m trying really hard to help him. This took a lot more emotional energy than I recognized at the time.

I finally find an apartment and begin planning the logistics of moving. I am also having a very difficult time grappling with the idea of moving out forever. This is pretty strange for me because I very rarely get homesick and did not have the most fantastic home life. I spent years dreaming about finally getting out of California. My dog, whose health had been declining for a while (she had been diagnosed with mast cell tumors about 3 years ago) was really not doing well.

The week after I moved, I experienced the worst friend drama I have ever experienced in my life. I won’t detail the situation here because it’s very long and complicated, but it ended with the friend I was trying to help and my boyfriend basically ending their friendship. Yikes.

At the end of August my boyfriend moved in with me. It was actually not hard to adjust to living together. I think we’ve hit a pretty good place in our relationship!

(Sept-Dec) I was really emotionally struggling with homesickness/not being there for my dog at the end of her life, so my boyfriend suggested I go home. I struggled with the idea for a while then decided it was a good idea. I think I spent so much time trying to help my friend that I pushed all my needs to the side. I went home and made it just in time to say goodbye to my dog. It was really hard but I took comfort in the fact that she lived years longer than the vets expected. We did everything we could for her.

The rest of this time period was thankfully pretty calm after I returned home. We hosted a few dinners with our friends and some of my bf’s coworkers (who have also become friends). Both of us went home for the holidays in December. Unfortunately I was pretty sick (not with Covid) for an entire week at home, but I still got to see a lot of people before/after being sick.

January! After the new year, I took a vacation to Flagstaff/Sedona with my mom and brother. We had a wonderful time (pictures coming soon). I returned to DC yesterday!

#me #personal #life update

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thephantomofthe-internet · 4 years

Text

A Fool for Love| Steve Harrington x Reader

MASTERLIST

Words: 7,354 OOF

Warnings: swearing, Shakespearean English, general fluff

Author’s Note: So I got inspired by @jxnehxpper‘s headcanon on Steve being a secret theatre lover and set to giving us what we deserve-Steve being a little theatre kid. And then I told her about it. And then I reread it. And now I’m doubtful of what this even is and how long it is. Good luck I guess

Tag List: @marvelslut16 @shinydixon @jxnehxpper

The laces were too tight. You couldn’t breathe. You were going to faint once you got up there. And your sleeves were too tight. You were already sweating through the long sleeves. Damn your overconfidence and crappy old patterns. And damn the seventies for making their bodices too tight and tan suede lacing so pretty over rouge coloured linen. And your shoes were too loose; they were going to fall off the second you took a step. Stupid Tammy Thompson and her stupid wide feet. You weren’t even supposed to be here.

Mrs. Blackburn loved to plan out a big spring show without thinking about how many students would be there on auditions. She chose these bombastic plays without thinking about who was actually going to be there. The drama club was made up of about ten members, who’d all be there on audition day, and that was usually it. And Mrs. Blackburn would throw a fit about it to you, her trusted right hand man with a plan. Then she’d spend her classes kissing ass to get students to come out for promised roles after stroking their egos enough to get them to bother with extracurricular theatre. Most kids took the class for an easy A, a quick passing grade that would boost their GPAs without making them want to claw their eyes out. Only a certain type of student would go through with this sort of embarrassment.

So when Mrs. Blackburn announced the spring show to be an abridged version of Twelfth Night, a choice you thought was decent enough. Cutting down the b-plot with Malvolio and the servants made the story run smoother and cut a metric crap ton of roles. Unfortunately, Mrs. Blackburn didn’t have the heart to cut the fool, which meant that she needed another guy to be in the show. And your little crew of nerds only had two boys. If only cross dressing was something she deigned to allow, alas Mrs. Blackburn believed firmly in women playing women and men playing men, which made it even harder to cast anything. It was ironic, knowing the actual plot of the play she’d chosen. Still, now she had a little challenge to hum and ha over for a month before casting the thing.

It was during this casting point that you heard quite possibly the worst idea you’d ever heard.

You often ate lunch in Mrs. Blackburn’s classroom. The entire drama club did. It was a nice, quiet place where no screaming teens or bullies could attack a boy for trotting around in a kilt from costume cupboard and kick a girl for her looks if they didn’t conform to what was considered pretty by the rest of the school. A hodgepodge of personalities grew in there like bacteria. Usually, there shining saviour would eat in the teacher’s lounge with the rest of the staff, but as shows got closer, she’d make sporadic appearances.

“Y/N!” the door slammed open, Mrs. Blackburn standing in the doorway, her wild red curls bouncing wildly around her tiny face, her thin pointed glasses slipping off her nose. “I’ve done it!”

“You’ve done what?” you looked up from your sack lunch. Mrs. Blackburn looked a mess. Her olive green paisley skirt was stained with coffee and her raggedy cream blouse was flashing her bra to the world. She looked as if she’d gotten dressed in her donation bag. You had a sort of love-hate relationship with the woman. She was like a second mother to you, which meant that you loved her unconditionally but hated her in the moment.

“I’ve found us a diamond in the rough,” she marched over to the desk. As always, you’d taken over the teacher’s desk. You were the only person she trusted to sit there with her unmarked tests and unopened lipsticks gifted to her by Lisa Gardner’s Avon selling mother. Her hands slapped the fake wood “I’ve found our Duke Orsino.”

You watched from behind her as both Gordon Fisher and Dale Michaels deflated behind you. The only boys in the club would kill for a leading role. They shouldn’t have to kill, there were only two of them; there shouldn’t be a fight at all. But Mrs. Blackburn liked to do a bit of stunt casting within the Hawkins High School student body.

“No one has been chosen yet!” you turned you attention directly to them. Of course, that was a blatant lie. Both you and Mrs. Blackburn already had pretty much the entire show cast before auditions had even been announced. Dale would play the jester, who Mrs. Blackburn had flagrantly rewritten as a sort of narrator, believing herself capable of rewriting Shakespeare, and Gordon would play Sebastian. He was fundamentally much more attractive than Dale, and much less mockable. Dale was the kid hiding in the classroom in a kilt from Tommy H, which he was wearing because he ripped his pants and didn’t want to walk around with his stained tighty whities.

You turned your attention back to Mrs. Blackburn, a small excited smile spreading across your face. “Who is it?” you asked.

“Oh he’s simply marvellous! He’s in our afternoon class, a Mr. Harrington!” Mrs. Blackburn had a dreamy grin spread across her face, her hands linked together in front of her chest.

Your smile dropped “Steve? Really?” This had to be a joke. Steve was in your drama class so to speak, he was never there. He skipped every class and only showed up for tests and to do graded performances. And his performances were shit. He was never off script and even with the script in front of his face he couldn’t keep the lines straight. He was useless!

“Oh yes yes! We had a very interesting conversation just a few moments ago and he’s very intrigued by our production and I think that he’ll make an interesting, dynamic choice for the role!” Mrs. Blackburn mused, her arms floating around as she spoke as if she was performing Swan Lake instead of properly explaining her decision.

“So, he’s coming into audition?” you asked slowly, leaning on your elbows. Mrs. Blackburn nodded. That was a surprise. The great king of Hawkins high bothering to join the unwashed, artistic masses? That was a shock. You expected him to just demand the role to be his. Not that you thought he’d read the play. You doubted he’d even skimmed the Cliff’s Notes.

“Yes, I’ve already signed him up. By the looks of it, if all the auditions go well we’ll have a full cast without call backs.” She turned her attention to the cowering masses behind her, all staring up in awe. Well, all except Robin Buckley. She wasn’t really a part of the collective though; she was just there for Tammy Thompson.

“Alright, then I can’t wait to see what he does…” you replied with a small smirk. Everyone else in the room was thinking the same thing: Steve Harrington was going to choke. The second Mrs. Blackburn left the room, everyone began their muttering and musing. The only person who seemed to sympathize with the kid was Tammy, who kept whining about poor, poor Steve and how he was going to make a fool of himself. Everyone had seen Steve’s failings with performance, most of the room either spent their free period in your drama class or had taken drama with him in freshman year. His misgivings were known throughout the little crew, even Robin seemed to understand that the kid just wasn’t talented.

And when auditions rolled around, you except the worst. As always, you were playing stage manager slash costumer for the production, your chosen role, and you sat at the back of the classroom with a clipboard and red pen in hand. You had the audition list copied on a few sheets of paper with the role presumed to fit them best. You’d seen most of the room audition a million times before. Both you and Mrs. Blackburn had a clear idea of what was going to happen. And, for the most part, it all fell into place. Tammy, despite her pleas to be Viola, was much more suited to the prissy and rich Olivia; Dale actually wanted to be the fool, which made your life easier, now you wouldn’t have to crush him dreams; Heather Holloway would happily play Viola, which you were more than happy to give her; and sweet little Nicole Chandler would play the nursemaid Maria.

Then, there was Steve Harrington and Gordon Fisher. Gordon had come in and bashed all of your notions of him being fabulously brash and boisterous Sebastian by auditioning instead for the powerful and yet underwhelming awkward Duke Orsino. And he was great! He was better than great!

And then there was Steve. He was terrible. Just plain awful. He didn’t look up once from the crumpled photocopied pages he held in his fist and he didn’t seem to know what he was saying. No, scratch that he had no idea what he was saying. He wasn’t so much playing a character but instead just trying to pronounce the words on the page and string them together in complete sentences. It was painful. But, to Mrs. Blackburn, it was perfect. She clapped when he finished, smiling far too wide as she egged him on. She kicked you under the table to follow suit and you added in a few slow claps. With a hefty dose of praise hefted on him like whipped cream, she sent Steve off and turned her attention to you.

“He’s perfect,” she said. You almost expected her to let out a dreamy sigh, like a love struck teenager instead of a married middle aged woman. She just looked so happy about the whole thing. You took a bit of secret joy in popping her bubble.

“Gordon was much better for the part.” You slipped your pen behind your ear and crossed your arms over your chest. Mrs. Blackburn’s thin mouth dropped open into a tiny ‘o’, only really defined by her cherry red lipstick.

“What?” she cried before composing herself “No, no Gordon was fine, he’ll make a fabulous Sebastian, but Steve is what I want for the Duke.”

“Are you sure I mean-” You couldn’t help but try to argue the point. You knew in your heart that the little shows you helped put on weren’t award worthy by any means but you still took great care in making them as good as possible, if only as a self-serving move to make them watchable from the booth.

Mrs. Blackburn shook her head, her tiny mouth pulling into a stern frown. “The decision is made. You cannot change my mind, Y/N.” she said flippantly, turning away from her to collect her papers. “We’ll have the list up by Monday, yes?”

You swallowed and nodded once. Mrs. Blackburn swept out of the room, her silver bracelets clattering together as she left. Once the door shut, you let out a heavy sigh and put away your clipboard. You’d type up the temporary list and deal with your temperamental director. First, you had to find Steve.

You found him hunched over at his locker. If you didn’t know him better, you’d say that he was ashamed. But he was too much of a cocky shit to ever feel ashamed of his own showboating. And what you just saw was showboating. There was no other way to explain it. He didn’t care about the show, or the play, he only cared about himself and showing off.

You tapped him hard on the shoulder. Steve turned his head. He wasn’t certain of your name but he recognized you from only a few minutes prior. He wanted to disappear. He’d just made a complete fool of himself and now had to atone to his butchering of words he didn’t quite get.

“Look, I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but if you’re just signing onto this thing to fuck around and make fun of people, I suggest you back the fuck down. Fisher and Michaels might stand down to your asshole buddies but I won’t.” you sneered, planting your hands on your hips and straightening your back to reach your fullest height. You had never been in a fight before, at least not one that wasn’t staged and within a classroom setting, but you’d stand up for those kids. Anyone who volunteered themselves for theatrical productions were doing something vulnerable, and vulnerability wasn’t something that could be taught or captured in a bottle, it was something given that should be protected. And you vowed to protect them from someone with ill will, if only to make your show better.

“Look,” Steve swallowed hard, looking away from you. Your gaze was searing into him and he was already embarrassed as is. He didn’t think he could blush any harder. “I’m not bullshitting. Mrs. Blackburn offered and I said yes, that’s all. No buddy’s gonna find out about this.”

You watched him squirm like a worm on a hook. He looked genuine. His eyes spoke more volumes than his words. You nodded, letting out a sharp breath through your nose. “Alright…” you turned on your heel and walked off without a goodbye to the thoroughly embarrassed boy.

Once the work started, it was a wash of a production. You wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Tammy was over the moon that Steve Harrington was joining them to play pretend and thrilled to explain to him that his character was in love with hers. He seemed horrified by the idea but dutifully played along. Gordon was beyond pissed, having to watch Steve stumble through lines and direction given by Mrs. Blackburn while he waited for his shot to do any acting at all. Robin was pissed too. Mrs. Blackburn had roped her into the production to do a few flute solos in pivotal scenes, which meant her having to watch the scenes she’d be playing in and you’d have to make her a little costume to wear. You’d been given your budget and some ancient patterns from Mrs. Blackburn’s collection, a 1970s renaissance faire dress pattern that didn’t fit in at all with the period. You bit back complaints about how little money you had to make anything nice.

You silently thanked god for Heather Holloway and her rich parents. They would pay to have her costumes done separately from your handiwork and all you’d have to do was make some decent things for the rest of the cast. You’d be sewing until your fingers bled. You were just thankful that you had made patterns for men’s pants in the same style of the dresses. You wouldn’t have to draft different sizes off a thin parchment pattern for them. Nicole, Tammy, and Heather were all around the same size so you’d only need to two different sizes of pattern. The project would be fairly simple.

Which meant that Mrs. Blackburn had to throw a wrench in everything.

She asked you to speak with her after your afternoon class one month into rehearsals. You stood awkwardly in front of her desk, your trapper keeper clutched tight to your chest, a few fingers bandaged from pricks and pokes from rouge pins and needles. You’d spent the night before alternating between putting blocking notes into your script and hemming the skirt of Tammy Thompson’s pale yellow dress. You’d bought a very pretty pale yellow brocade fabric with thin gold laurel patterns over the material and it was heavier than expected but it looked rightfully rich enough for a duchess to wear.

“Now, I might have overestimated Mr. Harrington’s acting abilities,” she said quietly, looking between you and the door. Steve was the first out of the room when the bell rang, he wasn’t lurking by the door waiting to hear you shit talk him. “He’s not performing well.”

“Well yes, I tried to tell you that when we auditioned him.” You replied, trying to hold back an eye roll.

“There’s no need to be bitter, he’s salvageable.” Mrs. Blackburn turned her attention to erasing the board. She had a freshman year drama class after this and the smelly youths would burst through the door at any moment. “What we’ll do is simply give him some extra help, less time working with the others and have him focus on really working on his lines. He’s not off book anyway.”

You nodded “So, what do you need me to do here?” Mrs. Blackburn reached into her desk and pulled out her pads of excused late slips, pulling out a pen and scribbling out your student information.

“Well, I can’t very well stop blocking the performance and we need to start heading over to the theatre soon. So you’ll handle helping Mr. Harrington from here on out.” She said nonchalantly. Her hoard her stinky children burst into the room, taking over the class with sound and fury, signifying nothing but an assault on your eardrums.

“So, and just for clarification here, you want me to make all the costume, stage manage the production, and teach Steve his lines?” you asked, taking the green slip she dangled out in front of you.

“Well yes of course that’s what you signed on to do and we always come through on what we choose to do.” Mrs. Blackburn turned her attention to her classroom, clapping twice to grab their attention. You knew that this was your cue to leave and you slinked away with your tail betwixt your legs, put back in your place by the older woman. You could’ve screamed. Teaching lines was not what you signed up for. Working with Steve was not what you signed up for. You signed on for making costumes and stage managing. Steve was not a part of the equation. He wasn’t even associated with the equation. He was a whole separate equation that you weren’t supposed to be tasked with solving.

And yet when Mrs. Blackburn announced that the rest of the cast would be heading to the theatre and you’d be staying behind with Steve to run lines, you didn’t complain. Steve did, he wanted to see the theatre, but you stayed silent, waving them goodbye as they left the cramped classroom. You and Steve stared at each other for a moment, silent and awkward, before you reached down and picked up the paper grocery bag you’d brought along with you and pulled out the pretty rouge pink linen you’d bought to make Nicole’s dress. You lay it flat on the desks and unfolded your newspaper patterns.

“Alright, sit.” You pointed to the desk in front of you and opened your patterning kit, pulling out your white tailor’s chalk and sewing scissors. Steve obeyed, tucking himself into the desk. You looked up with a forced smile “Alright, this is how we’re doing to do this. You are going to perform the lines without your script. When you need a line, say line and I’ll give it to you. Repeat it and then start again from the top. We’ll do that until you can say the whole thing without stuttering or calling line. Got it?”

Steve swallowed hard “Got it.”

“Alright, we’ll start from the first scene.” You pulled out your copy of the abridged play. Steve looked at you for a moment, confused and you summoned him to begin.

He took a heaving breath and you began pinning your pattern pieces to the material. “If music be the food of love, play on, give me…” Steve began, already stuttering. He went silent before shamefully asking “Line?”

You looked up with a raised eyebrow. You were hoping for at least a few lines to be known before he needed help. Mrs. Blackburn underestimated how little he knew. “Give me excess of it; that, surfeiting the appetite may sicken, and so die…that strain again!” you read out, monotone before turning your attention to Steve “Start again.”

He spouted out the dialogue, just a nervous as before and stuttering all the while. You managed to get through pinning the skirt piece down before he called line again. He only got through a line of dialogue past your last prompting. Steve looked utterly defeated and small in his seat. “I can’t think like this…” he muttered.

“The stand up. Or pace. Whatever you need to do. Just get through the speech here,” you said with a sigh “Do you need the line?” Steve nodded sadly and you read out the next line and Steve started again.

“If music be the food of love; play on, give me excess of it; that, surfeiting, the appetite may sicken and so die…that strain again! It had a dying fall: o’ it came o’er my ear like the sweet south that breathes upon a bank of violets; stealing odour…enough, no more!” he took a heaving breath. He was halfway across the room now and staring at the wall. You had turned your attention to him and were watching almost in awe. He knew the lines. He knew the whole speech. When he finished, he looked to you as if for the next line. You didn’t give it, instead you stepped out from the desk.

“You know the lines…” you breathed. It wasn’t a good performance, but he was off book. He was putting in work. You were impressed. Surprised, but impressed.

“When I’m walking around the room I do…” Steve chuckled awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck with a small smile.

“But you have no idea what you’re saying…” you breathed, watching as Steve deflated, giving a small nod.

“Why can’t he just write what he means, I get it’s supposed to be like poetry or whatever, but it makes no sense.” He pushed himself up onto the desk, crossing his legs under him.

“It helps to think about the character as a whole. What do you know about the duke?” you asked, taking a step back to approach the scene with script in hand.

“I mean…he’s a duke, which is an important person with a lot of people who work under him, and he’s in love with Olivia, who’s a rich duchess,” he counted them off with his fingers, chewing on his lower lip as he thought.

“Exactly!” you stopped him mid-sentence, pointing excitedly “He’s in love with Olivia and Olivia doesn’t love him back, right?”

“Right?” he had a right to be confused; Mrs. Blackburn had given Tammy the note to stop playing Olivia so moony eyed over Orsino for weeks now. She hadn’t stopped, despite swearing up and down that she wasn’t trying.

“She doesn’t, and so when he’s talking about love and music, do you think he’s happy to hear the music or not?” you asked.

“I mean…I guess yes and no?” you raised an eyebrow at him. That wasn’t the exact answer you expected. He continued “Cause he’s love sick, and being love sick is fun and terrible at the same time. He talks about being sick in the speech.”

You nodded “Yes! And when he says that he wants to surfeit, that means to like overdose. He wants to die from all the love. He’s overwhelmed by it all.” Steve’s smile grew. For the first time, he felt like he was getting it now. When you explained it, the scene made sense.

You reached for your scissors and picked up the material, taking a deep breath before making the first cut in the fabric. “Alright, now I want you to take all that stuff I told you and try to put it on the words.” You said, gesturing with your finger for him to start again.

And he did. He did the scene over and over again, pacing the room while trying to feel different things. It was easy to be overwhelmed-he was overwhelmed. Everything he was doing overwhelmed him. It didn’t help that you were watching him. He didn’t like being watched. And you kept smiling at some parts and frowning at others. He wanted you to smile all the way through it. That meant that it was good, that he was doing good. And he liked your smile. This was the first time he’d seen it directed at him.

“Alright,” you stopped him mid sentence, holding out a flat palm out “Enough pacing. The blocking has you seat in like this big chair.” You stepped out from behind the desks and pulled out a chair, placing it in the centre of the room. “Sit down, we’re going to put it altogether.”

Steve gingerly sat in the chair, positioning himself the way Mrs. Blackburn had instructed with his legs splayed wide and his right elbow propped on his knee, holding his head up. With a heavy breath he started again “If music be the food of love, play on…fuck!” you looked up from your work curiously “I forgot the line already! I keep thinking about the words and the meaning and the emotions and the meter-I can’t do it all.”

You nodded, pulling the pins out of the pattern and marking the pieces numerically. “Tap your foot to the beat of the words, one less thing to think about.” You said, capping the pin box. “Do it one more time and then we’re done. They’re finishing up at the theatre now, we have to vacate ASAP.”

Steve tried your trick. It worked. He was shocked. You knew so much about this stuff. He didn’t know anything about any of this. He felt like a doofus. But you helped him through. He thought it was a onetime thing, but every rehearsal you’d take him aside and work on the words. Mrs. Blackburn had cut the thing down to about two acts, still longer than most parents wanted to sit through, but better than five acts and two intermissions. He didn’t know how he was going to do this at all. Still, he felt safe with you watching. He could perform to you instead of the audience.

For your part, you liked working with Steve. You didn’t think that you would, but he was pretty self sufficient with the piece after you gave him your Cliff’s Notes version of the text to help him understand the scenes he had to do and the context of the play as a whole. And he was funny. You didn’t know that he was funny. And he hated Tammy. Anyone who hated Tammy was a friend of yours. She was brutally annoying in rehearsals and at this point was refusing to kiss Gordon. And poor Gordon was more than over having Steve there, he swore that the guy was doing something to distract Tammy. Of course he was, he was existing in her world for the first time, but you were quick to defend him, because he was trying. It wasn’t his fault that Tammy couldn’t keep it in her pants or that Heather was more focused on her costumes than her performance. Still, nobody understood why he was there.

Sat with Steve at the back of the Hawkins Community Playhouse, you decided to ask him. “Hey,” you asked quietly. Gordon and Tammy were doing their little love scene on the stage below and Mrs. Blackburn would kill you if she could hear you talking. “Can I ask you something?” Steve nodded, looking up from his script.

“Why are you doing this show?” Steve frowned and you backtracked quickly “I mean, this isn’t your bag I just was curious…”

“Honestly?” Steve asked. You gave a half nod, trying not to appear too curious. “Mrs. Blackburn promised me that if I did this, she’d pass me for the year and that I can skip out on the final.” Your eyes blew wide. You were pissed. Not because he was only doing the show for a decent grade, but because you still had to prepare a monologue performance to perform for your final on top of all this work.

“That bitch…” you murmured “I wanna skip out on the final!”

Steve laughed “Ask! She was only gonna pass me, I haggled for the final.”

“She’d never. She wants to work me to death, I swear.” You chuckled darkly. You flipped up the tan suede Bodice you built, the lace dangling loosely from the eyelets. It looked good. It would look better on Nicole, for now it would have to look good on the floor.

Steve was called up to the stage and you returned to Mrs. Blackburn’s side, watching the ending go down, as Viola’s true nature is revealed and Sebastian is reunited with his sister. It was a messy scene, with the Malvolio plotline cut there wasn’t a scheme to reveal or a villain to unmask, so the scene became instead a bit of a wedding. You still wished you’d done A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, you would’ve actually auditioned for that show. Still, Twelfth Night was turning into a half decent show. You hadn’t expected Steve to bring anything, but he played the duke like a sort of well meaning dunce, a loveable yet hopeless fool. He just seemed to have fun, especially when Nicole and Dale were acting silly behind him. He just seemed to have fun with them, unlike Tammy and Heather who had no interest in playing and seemed to be fighting for who could look the most bored. It had been a long day, it was nearly eight o’clock at night and Mrs. Blackburn had sent her husband to go pick up pizza for the cast an hour ago. Everyone was exhausted, but you were supposed to do a full fitting for the cast after they were done.

Thankfully, Mrs. Blackburn ended the torture. “Alright,” she clapped once, calling an end to the scene “Let’s call it quits there. Y/N has brought all the costumes for the show with her today, let’s have a try on and then we’ll take our pizza to go. Sound good?” the whole room let out an exhausted half cheer and you picked up the massive duffel bag you’d brought from home.

“I hope everyone remembered their shoes,” you said, pulling out the first hanger, holding the intense yellow brocade with the golden Bodice for Tammy to take. “Heather, your stuff is here, right?” Heather scoffed, taking the three off the stage and picking up her own bag. You handed Nicole her dress and passed out the brown faux burlap pants and white puffy shirts. You’d made separate vests for each character-Steve’s a rich navy blue, Dale’s a jaunty royal purple with a matching jester cap from the prop closet, and Gordon a dull olive green. Their colours would have to do to differentiate them to the audience. Everyone left to do their try on and when they returned you were transported to the ren faire.

You stepped off the stage, joining Mrs. Blackburn in the fifth row. You smiled; the brocade looked lovely under the lights, as did the silver buttons you’d put on Steve’s vest. It was a bit wide. “Alright, Tammy you’re good to change, Steve stay put.” You jumped back onto the stage, stepping behind him. Up close, it was hard to look at him. He was too attractive. You were stunned that any man could look sexy in a stupid puffy shirt, but there Steve was, ruining your work relationship with him.

“Stay still, I’m putting pins in your vest, I don’t want to poke you.” You whispered, pulling a couple pins from your cushion. You felt Steve suck in a deep breath as your fingers grazed his lower back, tingles running up his spine. You pulled the material in a bit, pinning it flat. You noted that you’d have to add a couple darts to each side to make it fit better. It only took a few moments, but when you came back around to look over Steve he looked as if he might faint. “Steve,” he looked to you with blown out eyes “Breathe.” He nodded twice and you stepped off the stage. It was only a week until performances. He must have been scared shitless.

Steve was scared shitless. Of you. He didn’t know how to act when you were watching him. Well, he knew how to act, you’d trained him to play Orsino, but he didn’t know how Steve fit into your relationship. All he knew was that when he had to kiss Heather at the end of the show, he only had you on his mind. He couldn’t even look at you when it was over, he felt like he’d cheated on you. Which was insane, but the feeling stuck in his gut.

When the day of performances came around, Steve was shaken. He didn’t know what to do with himself. He hadn’t told any of his friends about what he was doing and yet word had gone around the school. All of his friends were coming opening night, he swore with pitchforks and rotten fruit to throw. When he got the theatre at four o’clock that afternoon, however, the whole cast was in a tizzy.

Heather was an hour late. And, according to Nicole, she wasn’t coming. “Her father’s hosting a benefit at the Carmel Country Club tonight, there’s no way that she’s showing.” She moaned. Mrs. Blackburn was already in the phone book, looking up the number of the club. She left to make a call, promising that Heather would never do such a thing.

Tammy was crying off her makeup in the corner, with Robin consoling her while trying to not get blackened tears on her white shirt. “She’s going to ruin my show! She’s ruining it!” she sobbed.

You were stood in the corner, unsure where to place yourself. Luckily, Mrs. Blackburn returned quickly. “I’ve just spoken to Heather,” she announced. The room fell into a hush.

“And?” you asked, looking up from the hot rollers you were putting in Nicole’s hair.

“And she’s not coming. She told me about this and I said it was okay. I guess I forgot.” Mrs. Blackburn replied. You knew that was bullshit, but you held your tongue.

“What’re we going to do???” Tammy cried out. That sent the room into an uproar, everyone talking over one another. Steve stayed silent. In truth, he was a bit glad to be rid of Heather. Maybe they wouldn’t have to perform.

“Now, now as we know in the theatre the show must go on!” Mrs. Blackburn cried. “Y/N, as stage manager, has been learning the blocking and pacing for the show. She will go on as Viola and I will make a speech before we go on! It’s all we can do!”

Everyone turned to look at you. You turned your attention to Mrs. Blackburn, walking over to her and whispering in her ear. “If I do this, I don’t have to do the final. You grade on this.” She looked you over and then turned once. You turned to the cast and sighed softly, nodding “The show will go on.” You shrugged, heaving up your trapper keeper.

“She doesn’t look right. She doesn’t have a costume.” Tammy whined.

“I will go to the school and get what we have left. I’m sure we have a pair of trousers and a puffed shirt for her to wear.” Mrs. Blackburn grabbed her purse off the makeup counter “Girls, work your magic on her.”

You put the last roller in Nicole’s hair and she grabbed your arm, pulling her into the chair next to her. “Grab that green skirt from last year!” Nicole called after her teacher “You’re gonna wear this dress for the opening. I’ll wear the skirt and whatever else she brings back, now let’s make you Viola.”

You were poked and prodded and burned until you were as close to looking like Heather as you were going to get. Then, you were stuffed into Nicole’s dress. Thankfully, Mrs. Blackburn had found two leftover puffy white shirts and a bodice, and the decision was made that you’d wear the rouge dress and she’d wear the green skirt from last year. It was a nice enough gesture, as was Tammy being forced to give up her extra pair of character shoes, which she did begrudgingly at the behest of Robin.

And then, you were stood offstage. And you were terrified. You’d never done this before. In your four years of stage managing, no one had ever called out of a performance, you’d never had to take over a role last minute. Your mind kept focusing on the discomfort of the costume. Nicole had tied your bodice too tight. Tammy’s shoes were too big. The skirt was too long. You were too wrong for this. You wanted to run. And then, the lights came up on Steve. Your breath caught in your throat as he spoke the opening lines so well and Robin began her first flute solo. Steve was doing wonderfully. With his left foot tapping lightly on the wooden stage floor, he knew what he was saying, even with distraction surrounding him. Internally, he felt as close to someone else as he’d ever felt in his life. Steve didn’t like that you weren’t in the audience to watch him, but he couldn’t see anyone with the lights on anyway. The audience clapped as he finished his scene and left with Dale, the lights going out fully as Robin cleared her chair and music stand and Gordon carried off the throne. Steve reached out and squeeze your shoulder with a kind smile.

“You have this,” he said softly. You heaved out a breath and stepped on the stage. You went right to the centre and right up to the edge, sitting down so your legs dangled off. You had no idea how Heather did this. You were too close to the audience. As the lights came up, you looked down at the lines in front of you. Dale stepped onto the stage in a sailor’s cap. He really had to play everyone in this stupid show. He nodded to you with a smile.

“What…” you voice came out in a whisper. No one could hear you. You took a breath, closing your eyes before trying again. “What country, friends, is this?” you asked loudly.

Dale’s smile grew. The scene was actually happening. “This is Illyria, lady.” He said, doing his best to sound like an old man.

The first scene was bumpy. Dale wanted to show off a bit and make the audience laugh, even though the scene was an info dump, which meant that you could just read the lines back to him and follow the blocking. You were more comfortable moving than you were speaking. But it got easier. Once you were dressed as Ceserio and working with Steve, things went smoother. You knew those scenes very well, the lines were almost memorized on your part from playing scene partner to him. Steve was fun to work with, he constantly made you smile.

It wasn’t hard for you to pretend to be in love with Steve. You felt like you were. Well, maybe not love. But like. Like a whole lot. And you were sure that he liked you to. Or maybe he was just that good of an actor.

The show went so fast. It was refreshing. Sat in the booth, it was a slog to get through, but onstage it went quick. You were nervous over the ending. You knew Heather’s last scene was a kiss with Steve. It wasn’t the passionate, intense kiss that Tammy and Gordon would do a scene before, but it was still a kiss. No matter how he felt about you, this was going to change your friendship forever.

You joined the cast last on stage, the who’s who of the plot being broken down, Steve was supposed to be mad when you came onstage, but he smiled like he’d seen what heaven looked like. You smiled up at Steve as the changed scene began, cutting the duel that leads the group into their explanations of the mix ups. Mrs. Blackwell hadn’t had the heart to cut a bit of Viola’s dialogue, so it lead the group into the explanations instead.

“After him I love, more than I love these eyes, more than my life, more by all the mores than e’er I shall love my wife.” You had no direction for what to do with the line. Heather had said it dramatically towards the audience. You turned your attention to Steve, caressing his face with your thumb. It was greedy, you were using the scene to get a bit of affection from the boy. You knew you shouldn’t, but you couldn’t help it. Steve seemed bewildered but happy, he fit the moment perfectly.

The scene continued as planned, with all the reveals shown to the characters and couples happily coupled off. Sebastian and Olivia were revealed to be married and that all was okay between Viola and Olivia once her gender was revealed.

Steve turned to you, smiling ear to ear “Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times thou never shouldst love woman like me.” He took your hands in his squeezing them tight.

“And all those sayings will I over-swear, and all those swearing keep me as true in soul as doth orbed continent the fire that severs day from night.” You replied, matching his giddy grin. The kiss was coming soon, he had one more line and then he’d plant one on you.

“Give me thy hand,” you both looked down at your still clasped together hands. The audience chuckled. Steve pressed on “And let me see thee in thy woman’s weeds.” You and Nicole rushed offstage and quickly changed you into the dress again. You were all butterflies and pins and needles, shaking in your loose heels. Nicole brushed out your skirt and smiled, escorting you back onstage.

The audience clapped politely on your return, you tried your best to smile although was hard to breath with Steve looking at you like that. He scooped you up in his arms and kissed you quickly before you had a moment to react. You swore that he had a line before this happened but you didn’t care. Your script was out of your hands anyway, he’d knocked it out of your hands when he lifted you off the ground. You swore you were flying.

And then you were on the ground. Steve cleared his throat. He was blushing madly. He remembered his line. He turned to Tammy, who was holding back a laugh before turning back to you.

“Cesario, come! For so you shall be, while you are a man; but, when in other habits you are seen, Orsino’s mistress and his fancy’s queen.” He announced, grabbing your hand and sweeping you off the stage, Gordon and Tammy in close pursuit. Dale and Nicole still had a scene, which Mrs. Blackburn had changed for them to share. You weren’t paying attention to them though.

“Nice work,” Steve breathed, squeezing your hand in his.

“You surprised the hell outta me,” you chuckled “Made me lose my script.”

“You look really pretty like this,” Steve said. You looked at him carefully. He was sweaty and shy, his eye barely met yours.

You smiled “Thank you, you look good in cheap period costumes.” You knocked your hip into his, making him stumble just a bit. He grabbed your hip, pulling them parallel to his.

“Yeah?” he asked, bring his left hand to grab your chin.

You smiled “Oh yeah, definitely,” you wrapped an arm around his neck, pulling him down to kiss you again as Tammy and Gordon ran to grab you for curtain call. You didn’t care. Looking into Steve’s eyes, you knew he wasn’t a good enough actor to fake the way he looked at you. And you swore the world went silent in that moment, nothing standing between you and the swirling stars and hearts in his eyes.

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mashounen2003 · 3 years

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Sonic opinions - 4

Initially, the purpose of my fanfics was almost only to think of a possible continuation of the events of Sonic SatAM, adapting things from the Archie-Sonic comics (and taking some licenses in the process), and trying to better write Antoine's transition from his self in the cartoon to his self in the comics, give more importance to Tails and better portray his parents, Amadeus and Rosemary. But then I realized how abysmal the differences between the two versions of Antoine were, while it was also harder for me to think of a way to write Rosemary coherently.

In Antoine's case, lately, I came up with an alternative to make him develop and stop being what he was in the TV series:

Immediately after the original Robotnik has been defeated, Antoine leaves his team behind. He actually doesn't know how to fight, but he still has good marksmanship, so he becomes a hitman. However, he's eventually convinced to leave behind that life without honour, begins to train in real fighting skills and becomes a genuine Freedom Fighter once and for all. In any case, he develops an opinion of "the end justifies the means" and continues thinking it for the rest of the story, being critical of his former team; this, along with his lasting grudge against Sonic and Sally, leads him to fight against the Monarchy in the events of "Civil War".

As for Rosemary... I don't like to say it this way, but she was a total b**** in the comics. I came up with a way to show her in a better light, but in no way could it have worked with the comics' Rosemary as she was. I'll talk about it when I write my list of ideas for future fanfics.

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I also addressed Politics in that fictional universe, trying to avoid the way this was done in the comics: there, Ian Flynn created the Council of Acorn and portrayed it as a bunch of stereotyped useless politicians obsessed with controlling the heroes and barely concerned with their country's security, and I think Flynn didn't do it to actually enrich the comics' universe or to add depth to the story or to communicate certain political ideas, but only to give readers someone to blame.

In the stories I wrote so far, I didn't go deep into what happened with my fictional universe's Council of Acorn after its creation; however, I did address its origin, and in doing so, I didn't make the Bems involved. Look... In the comics, Tails's parents were inspired by the Bems to try to establish a Democracy in Acorn, and this entails some inconvenience:

The Bems are terrible people. They roboticized Sonic and Tails to make them fight Robotnik and Snively, in order to verify the robots were better than flesh-and-blood beings (if things had happened differently, perhaps Mobius's Robians wouldn't have been de-roboticized); their society is entirely made of clones and almost lacks variety, not only in terms of the physical but also in terms of people's ideas; their judicial system is quite f***ed up (at least according to our standards), and... *sigh* they're just the worst. These traits of the Bems had been developed when Karl Bollers wrote the comics, and Flynn should have considered that they’re technically canon before having Tails's parents claim to have been inspired by those aliens.

Even if we cling to Moral Relativism with all our strength, claiming the Bems are just "different" and have different behaviour, mindset, psychology and culture, this keeps making things complicated: applying something in one society, solely because it succeeded in another, ain't exactly something smart to do.

And the craziest of all is that it could have been avoided very easily: Flynn could simply have said there were previous failed attempts to establish a Democracy in other countries of Mobius and Amadeus & Rosemary had always wanted a change in the government system, had learned about those historical events and knew (or believed they knew, at least) how to do it right this time. Moreover, Flynn could have said the decade spent by Tails's parents with the Bems gave them a clue about what they should not do when finally returning to their homeworld.

I tried, in my work, to use this idea of Amadeus & Rosemary wanting to establish a Democracy in an attempt to succeed in what others in other parts of Mobius had failed throughout History. It was based upon what happened in the French Revolution (more precisely, the Jacobin period), the years immediately after the Russian Revolution, and mainly the First English Revolution: in 1648, the Monarchy was overthrown in England; the change was violent and chaotic, the government that took the place of the King ended up being also a despotic tyranny, and the final result was just the return of a King to power in 1660 (although, anyway, the Glorious Revolution established in 1688 the British parliamentary system as we know it); Thomas Hobbes, while watching those events unfold, wrote his book Leviathan, where he justified the need for an Absolute Monarchy by arguing humans were violent, selfish, chaotic and brutal by nature, so they had signed a symbolic pact where they ceded all their rights and their power to a single person in charge of ruling with an iron fist, in order to prevent humanity from destroying itself. In my fanfics' universe, it was mentioned those attempts at democratization in Mobius led to civil wars, ended with those same peoples clinging to ideas similar to those of Hobbes, quickly restoring the Monarchy and promising themselves not to try and establish a Democracy ever again.

I also mentioned the recurring conflicts between the Acorn Kings and the Southern Barons in the comics, as well as the connection between the Kings and the infamous Source of All, among other things. I also had Amadeus do what he should have done in the comics when he explained why he wanted there to be Democracy: to present historical events, such as those conflicts, the Kings' cult of the Source of All and the technological and cultural backwardness to which the people were subjected by them, as concrete examples of how the Monarchy had never worked well.

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There are several Sonic fans, including @toaarcan and @robotnik-mun, who argue Politics shouldn't have been addressed at all in Sonic stories. Also, the vast majority of Sonic fans claim each and every one of the attempts to make this series more serious were some of the worst things that could have happened, even the addition of more characters was nothing but a cancer, and everything should have remained "simple" or the Sonic franchise shouldn't have gone beyond what it was at the time of the classic Genesis games. I praise the stories written by @toaarcan, and I agree with many of the opinions of both him and @robotnik-mun, but with all due respect, I totally disagree on this particular point.

I've always believed that, if it's done right, any topic should be able to be addressed in any kind of fiction, and Politics is no exception; more exactly, I think an author has two options when writing a work aimed at children and young people: to write something super light and soft where no serious topic is addressed, or to "go all-in" and address all serious topics, leaving nothing out; this includes not only Politics, but also tragedies, the complexities of love, toxic interpersonal relationships (whether abusive or otherwise), bullying, mental illness, trauma (for example, that caused by war), societal issues, and so on. That's one of the many whys of my love for RWBY: there's nothing that web-series doesn't talk about. As for the proper and respectful LGBTQ+ representation, rather than a serious topic reserved for serious fictional works, it's a requirement every fictional work should meet, whether serious or not, especially in the middle of the 21st century (this is something I think my work didn't meet satisfactorily).

With Sonic SatAM and the comics, it looked like the second option could have worked in the Sonic franchise too, and the TV series did it right to some extent. Unfortunately, Archie-Sonic's writers almost never did things right in regards to relationships between characters: Ken Penders's work, in particular, is an example of how relationships should never be, and Flynn's attempt to talk about Politics was a complete disaster, not much better than Penders's heinous handling of political stuff, more similar to a very low-quality North-American political satire, even when the conflict portrayed wasn't of the "Right versus Left" kind but of the "Monarchy versus Republic" kind, which should have been much easier to do without ruining everything. The only ones who didn't fall into those same mistakes were Gallagher and Angelo DeCesare, the comics' first writers, but only because they chose the first option: to write stories that weren't serious at all... with the notable exception of "Growing Pains", the B-story of issues #28 and #29, a typical Shakespearean tragedy where they presented us Auto-Fiona, a robot replica of who would later be one of the most controversial characters in the comics.

This, coupled with the resounding failure of Sonic 2006, is the only reason why now almost everyone in the Sonic fandom prefers stories without anything serious and/or a return to the Classic Sonic era, with very underdeveloped characters who are turned into mere plot devices and are only a shadow of their former self or of what they could have been.

#sonic fanfiction by mashounen #sonic opinions by mashounen #sonic #archie sonic #sonic comics #sonic the hedgehog #sonic 2006 #ken penders #ian flynn #penders is an asshole #ian flynn is not much better #antoine d'coolette #rosemary prower #miles tails prower #amadeus prower #rwby #sonic satam

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hellitwasyoufirstsergeant · 4 years

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Hi everyone! I’m not really sure why I’m posting this here, I suppose because I’m not ready for people I know ‘irl’ to see this, and this is the only account I have anywhere where none of my irl friends follow it. As to why I’m posting this at all, I’m not so sure either. I suppose largely for myself, in the hope that it will exorcise some demons, and partly for other people, because eating disorders just are not discussed enough and perhaps by posting this I can show someone else that they’re not alone.

There may be mistakes in this and it may not all be 100% coherent, I found it hard to write and I didn’t wish to read it back over.

WARNING: The following post contains discussions of eating disorders and mental health issues. Please do not read if this is a trigger for you, and please not not read if you’re only here to pass judgement

Looking back now, it’s so easy to realise why I felt the way I did, and to see my descent into mental illness. At the time, it was confusing as hell. I wasn’t diagnosed with generalised anxiety disorder and clinical depression until I was 17, although I had been suffering from both for six years already, I just didn’t realise it, because I just didn’t know they existed. I didn’t know there were medical conditions to describe how I felt, perhaps if I did I wouldn’t have felt so alone and so alienated. It wasn’t until last year that I realised I’d suffered from an eating disorder. Before that, I didn’t know that binge eating was an eating disorder.

The words ‘eating disorder’ to me conjured up images of skeletal bodies, of people making themselves sick. I wish that preteen and teen me knew that I was suffering from an actual condition, that other people suffered from too.

I don’t recall specifically the first time I binged on food, but over autumn (fall) of 2011 it became a regular occurrence, a habit. It was my way of coping with the changes in my life - starting a new school, my mum being diagnosed with a clinical illness and an increasingly fractured relationship with my dad - and my feelings of loneliness. I was also self conscious about my body, I was in a more advanced stage of puberty than most of my peers and I was aware of the fact that I was a little overweight. Bingeing became an outlet for feelings that I couldn’t understand, and therefore that I couldn’t process.

It was a process that I repeated regularly for six years. It was like a paradox, the more I looked at myself in the mirror and hated what I saw, the more I binged, the very thing that made me carry on putting on weight. I was overweight, I still am today, but I wish that I could have seen myself the way others saw me - slightly chubby but not the ugly monster I thought myself at the time. I ate my feelings away, it was the only coping mechanism I knew. Even when in some ways my life improved - when I was 14 I finally fell in with a group of friends who were kind and who made me feel accepted - my mental state continued to decline and I continued to eat to cope. I was also feeling confused about my sexuality, something that increased my sense of alienation and otherness. It was often the only thing that got me through the day, the only thing that made life bearable to me.

I never confided the way I felt or my problem with food to anyone during this period. My mum knew that I had issues with food, twice she found hidden stashes in my bedroom. She has been a good parent to me, but I so wish she’d handled it differently. She made me feel ashamed, something that made me more determined to hide my problem and therefore to not confront it. I think perhaps that she would’ve been a lot more understanding had she known the feelings behind the problem, but I didn’t know how to go about telling her.

I can’t remember how old I was exactly when I shoplifted food for the first time, I think around 14. The £10 a week pocket money was no longer enough to fund my problem, even though I always chose the cheapest food so that I could buy as much as possible. I shoplifted semi regularly from the local supermarkets for around 18 months, I still don’t know how I was never caught.

In September 2016, I started sixth form college. It was a fresh start that I so badly needed, my five years at secondary school having been so unhappy. It was hard to begin with, only my oldest friend went to the same college as me and old feelings of loneliness resurfaced. A part of me had hoped that the change of school would allow me to leave my bingeing habit behind, but it wasn’t to be. Even when I settled in and began making friends, I continued bingeing.

New friends at college told me of their mental health issues, and I finally felt understood - there were other people who felt the way I did, other people who wanted to die. These feelings may not be normal, but I’m not alone anymore. Despite feeling accepted properly for the first time in my life, I continued to eat. Perhaps it was the stress of A levels (my fellow Brits know how fucking hard these are), or my mum’s decline in health, or my increasingly worsening relationship with my dad.

In May/June time of 2017, my oldest friend, Imogen, who was one of a few friends now aware of my poor mental state, told me that I should go to the doctor. After a little persuading, I agreed. She came with me, but the appointment achieved nothing. I tried a few more GPs at my local surgery and eventually found one who made me feel listened to, and who was kind and sympathetic. I don’t recall the exact time I was diagnosed (to be honest this period in my life is a bit of a blur), but after some months I was finally diagnosed with GAD and clinical depression. I still continued to stay silent about my problem with food.

Ironically, it was actually the further decline of my mental state that allowed me to break my old habit. My mental health had declined fairly slowly over the past few years, but the decline accelerated over autumn and winter of 2017. I don’t know if there was a trigger behind that, I guess mental health doesn’t need a reason. I didn’t know how to deal with the way I felt, I lashed out and fell out with Imogen, which hit me hard. We didn’t talk at all for three months. Before this period, I had often thought that things would be so much easier if I was dead, but my thoughts had never progressed beyond that. Now, it became more active. I actually wanted to die. I stopped looking when I crossed the road, I stopped looking after my physical health at all. Fears about hurting my mum were the only thing stopping me from taking it further. But, I finally stopped binge eating, so disinterested in life that even the that no longer made me feel better.

My mental state didn’t take a turn for the better, but I grew used to these new feelings and started to process them properly. I got better at pushing them out, but I did eventually decide to tell my parents about my diagnoses. My mum was very supportive, she still is, my dad not so (although I probably should’ve expected that). I made up with Imogen, my behaviour started to normalise. I felt so free from my old bingeing habit, it had only been a few months but it felt like a lifetime ago.

In February 2018, my mum told me that she’d be moving to Yorkshire. She’d been forced by her job to take early retirement due to ill health, she was only 50 at the time, and wanted to live somewhere cheaper so she could save on living costs and pay off her mortgage. I was scared, and considered for a time moving in with my grandparents so that I could stay in a place where I knew people, but eventually decided that I’d move with my mum. Still, despite the biggest change ever to happen in my life, I managed to avoid a return to my binge eating habit. I’m still not sure how. Perhaps now that the habit was broken it no longer had the hold over me that it once did.

And then, around March 2018, my dad gave me £500. To this day I still have no idea why, I guess guilt. But it was so much more money than I’d ever had. The temptation not to spend any of it on food was too great. I decided to treat myself, I’d spend £100 on food and put the rest in my savings.

By the time I finished college at the beginning of June, the entire £500 was gone, at least £450 of it spent on food. I still remember the binge I had the day after me and mum moved out of our old home and in with my grandparents, who we lived with for seven weeks before going to Yorkshire. My mental state declined still further, and I wasted most of those weeks in bed, not having the energy to do anything. I kicked myself later for not using it to spend time with the friends I was leaving behind.

After we moved to Yorkshire in August, I spent two of the worst months of my life. My old feelings of loneliness resurfaced, not helped by the fact that one of my closest friends just stopped talking to me. I seemed to alternate between binge eating, my binges even bigger than they ever had been, and hardly eating at all.

But, eventually, I managed to settle in. I got a job, I made new friends. I didn’t make a conscious decision to stop binge eating again, it just happened. I wasn’t lonely anymore, but my mental state didn’t seem to get any better. But, I had healthier ways of coping and I didn’t need to binge as an outlet for my feelings anymore. In September 2019, I started uni, and I finally felt like my life had a purpose.

Now, I have more and better friends than I ever had. I’m glad I made the move to Yorkshire, where I live now is much nicer where I grew up and if I hadn’t made the move there are so many amazing people I wouldn’t have met. Most of my friends are aware of my mental health issues, although I rarely discuss them in detail.

However, only one of my friends is aware of my eating disorder. I didn’t realise until last year that binge eating was classified as an eating disorder. I’m not quite sure why, but this discovery prompted me to finally confide in my oldest friend, Imogen. She was very supportive and understanding, and I know my other friends would be, but it’s still something where I look back and I’m like ‘woah that actually happened’. Putting it out of my mind as much as possible has been my way of coping with the fact that it did happen. I have been slightly more open online that I have irl about the fact that I had an eating disorder, but this is the first time I have discussed it this in depth with anyone.

I’m going to say now what I wish preteen and teen me had known: you are not alone. Whether you’re suffering from an eating disorder, from mental health issues, or from something else, you are not alone. I can’t say truthfully that I have never regretted confiding in someone, but the majority of the time it has helped me, even in a small way. Please talk to someone if you have an eating disorder, be it a friend, a family member, a GP, a teacher, even me. It is nothing to be ashamed of.

I stopped binge eating as a regular habit at the start of winter 2018. Although I relapsed a couple times last year, it’s been twelve months and counting since my last binge.

#shut up ange #please everyone remember that no matter what you’re going through #you are not alone #find later

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proper-goodnight · 3 years

Text

Detroit: New Beginnings

Summary: It has been one year since the androids claimed their rights to freedom after the revolution, and one year since Connor has decided to stay on the force at the DPD. The duo are currently working on a case involving androids going missing while Connor grapples with what he almost did to Markus at the peace rally and fearing Amanda’s inevitable return.

Pairing: N/A

Warnings: Violence, Strong Language

A New Start: Partners (01)

Detroit Police Dept.

August 30, 2039

12:30 P.M.

Tuesday

Chris abandoned his wife’s pastries on the counter in the break room.

Over the years, it had become an unspoken rule to not berate him for the fact that Hank could count the people that were brave enough to try his wife’s newest lifestyle kick for that week on one hand.

For all of the employees on the force, that wasn’t a lot. He didn’t need any special probability and statistics program to figure that out.

But, it wasn’t like Hank hadn’t tried. He had, but only once--and couldn’t keep a straight face or control his gag reflex enough to even think about trying it again. Their outward appearance had been what threw him for a loop initially; being made of enough random herbs and healthy shit couldn’t sway the uncanny resemblance between it and actual shit and no amount of Chris promising such couldn’t and would never convince him otherwise.

While Hank may have never cared about what he put in his body, he was still not ignorant enough to test whether or not his tolerance extended to something beyond alcohol or cigarettes. Some days, Connor’s habit of sticking evidence in his mouth suddenly didn’t sound so fucking revolting.

God, if the kid heard him say that…

In that same area of the precinct, a loud continuous whirring of a coffee machine grinded endlessly. DPD staff shuffled around it eagerly awaiting its cycle to complete, and Gavin had ingested just enough caffeine to erupt into his usual cacophony of loud remarks and comments about fuck-all that morning.

Of course the prick couldn’t grant them reprieve for even a few minutes.

Hank supposed if he didn’t then the fucker was either late or… late. It wasn’t like he ever called off.

No, they couldn’t be that lucky.

“No fucking way!” And to complete the morning, here Hank was with a deafening insistence in his tone that left little room to argue over Connor’s suggestion for the umpteenth time that morning. “I have had enough birthdays! I am getting too damn old for this shit!”

In response, Connor looked contemplative, but even more so, unsatisfied with his decision.

Typical Tuesday.

Sitting hunched over his desk, Hank sifted through piles of papers for his tablet. It furthered his incessant personal reminding that he should probably take a few minutes and clear his desk of all of his personal clutter--all of the memorabilia piling up over the years was beginning to make finding anything nigh to impossible, another indication made clear when he bumped a couple of pens to the floor with his elbow.

Cursing, he dismissed it to the abyss below his desk, staring at the screen with faux concentration. The contrast between their work stations was proving more apparent as the days went on, Connor’s completely clean of surface clutter and retaining a fresh sheen despite having claimed it a little over a year ago.

Besides the mess, the spinning yellow circle glaring at him just outside of his peripherals held his focus, having more recently recognized it as a sign of the android’s thinking--thought processing. Whatever.

Connor’s brows were furrowed, eyes fixed on him as if deciding in some sort of situational software that he had of some other option that would help move their conversation into a more positive direction, something that would somehow change it in his favor. He wasn’t getting anywhere, and Hank wasn’t going to take any bait.

The android’s lips parted to speak, but Hank was already turning away, grumbling incoherently under his breath.

And nothing that he would reiterate unless Fowler was going to lecture him about playing nice with his co-workers. Again.

Perched on the only unoccupied corner of his desk, arms crossed over a broad chest, Connor worked a tick in his jaw. If androids had actually possessed the need to breathe--and their biocomponents that simulated breathing were actually functional for that sole purpose--the asshole may have just sighed. For the briefest of an instance, he caught his partner’s stoic expression, tight-lipped and silently asking for some sort of agreement between the pair.

It wasn’t offered.

“I have been researching human cultural practices and I thought that maybe--”

“Drop it. You want to celebrate, then do it for yourself why don’t ya? Celebrate your one year since deviating. That’s in a couple of months.”

Connor almost looked thoughtful, features folding over in confusion as he worked through some sort of response. Hank’s celebration into an even older age was many in the long list of arguments that the two seemed to have, but it was also one of the only topics that Connor seemed ever insistent to talk about that didn’t revolve around a case.

That made it unavoidable.

Goddammit.

“I don’t think that qualifies as the same thing, Lieutenant.”

“Take my word for it. Let’s just go over the case.” To further his point, he swept his hand over the case files that had piled up on his desk the last couple of weeks. One large unorganized mess of manila folders and reports. “If Jeffrey dumps any more shit about it on my desk, I’m going to resign it.” It was a harmless jab in an effort to get Connor motivated, anything involving the words case or leads never failed to catch his attention.

Connor straightening from his rare hunched posture proved that fact rang true.

Even after finally closing the deviancy case.

The conversation, begrudgingly, wasn’t done though. It would be brought up again eventually. Unless the kid forgot or got distracted with something else.

Who the fuck was he kidding?

Connor never forgot. He didn’t possess the ability to forget. Maybe his stubborn nature could be argued with but in the last year or so being his partner, it was something that Hank faced with raw aggression and chose to avoid.

“Could’ve originated from the peace rally.” Hank went on, rubbing at his chin with faux concentration at the various folders opened up in front of him. He didn’t think any of them were relevant to their current case anyway. “The dates between that and the first android incident are pretty damn close together. Then again, maybe it’s just a weird coincidence.” The words unfolded into a low mutter under his breath, slumping back against his chair.

He spinned to the side to assess the clutter, a quick sweeping gaze over the mess and he retrieved the file that they needed and extended it to the android.

Connor’s eyes had followed every movement, and Hank assumed he was judging his lack of organization.

At least he kept his mouth shut if he was.

“Two guys were sent to the hospital last night.” Hank went on.

“According to the reports from Officer Miller, they were walking home from a Red Ice Anonymous meeting.” Connor confirmed.

Of course he’d kept up to date.

“They were jumped. He went to ask them some questions, bust aside from a brief statement, we ain’t getting much out of ‘em right now.” While he spoke, Connor flicked through it with practiced precision while simultaneously picking it apart. For what he already didn’t know, and Hank didn’t figure that was a lot.

And while it would be denied for the rest of Hank’s life, he would never admit that he was even somewhat jealous of Connor. If humans possessed the ability to see anyone’s information by a quick scan or retaining an entire casework of information in a few seconds, the meeting and getting-to-know-you shit of social relationships would be made easier by miles. Then again, he didn’t need any superior programming to know that his time would be better spent at home with Sumo.

“According to their file, Mr. Greene and Mr. Nicholson did in fact have a Red Ice history in the past.”

“That bit checks out with what Chris managed to get from ‘em at least. Not the worst druggies I’ve had the pleasure of dealing with.” A smirk pulled at one edge of his lips. If they were the worst of the worst, his job would have been a lot easier and most cases would be an opened and closed one.

“Possession and usage that earned them a few months jail time.” Connor confirmed, turning a suddenly quizzical gaze in his direction, dipping his chin. His brows pinched. “Wasn’t Detective Reed assigned all cases involving Red Ice?” The mention of their most eccentric detective was enough to pull a look of discomfort from the android.

Maybe it was the ill memory of the beating that he’d been forced to give him in the evidence room last year. Either way, Hank swore that Connor had some kind of satisfaction from it. He didn’t think so.

The bloody nose that he had given Perkins however? Fucking classic!

“He is, but there was Thirium found at the scene. No fingerprints on the weapon that was likely used in the attack. We’re looking at another Carlos Ortiz case except we can push an android through a fair trial now.”

Connor closed the case folder in his lap, his fingers plucking gingerly at the corner. That spinning yellow circle glared accusingly. “If the claims of their whereabouts are in fact correct, then I think that our best course of action is to question them ourselves. Maybe they can recall more when the shock period has passed. Distinct characteristics, how many androids there were in total, even.”

“Not to bust your balls kid, but we can’t scan a serial number like you can. Not to mention all of you androids have the same face. There’s no record of them ever owning an android, but…” Hank threw up his hands in surrender. “Maybe there’s a past history we don't know about. We’ll follow another lead over the next few days,” he decided. “See if they can’t give us anything else by the end of the week.”

With that, Hank breathed out a long-winded sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut as though fighting off a headache. Connor was a headache enough, the case being the migraine. He waved his free hand over his desk. “Take your pick. God knows we’ve got plenty.” A pained laugh slipped past his lips, almost incredulous. Borderline sympathetic.

For them.

Propping his elbow on the chair’s armrest, he leaned his head against a curled fist. His partner’s gaze was distant, even as Hank tried to meet it with a vague curiosity of his own.

He waited.

“What are you thinking, Connor?” No response was offered, that same accusatory yellow glaring at Hank just out of the corner of his eye.

Connor’s features folded, looking to an empty space at his right. Upon further inspection, Hank noted that nothing was there, looking between the two confirming the assumption that he was in some far off place elsewhere. An abrupt snap of his fingers in front of Connor’s nose brought him back. He raised his eyebrows, tilted his head. “Nothing. Nothing relative to our case.”

“Any other time you’re pulling leads out of your ass.” The remark was followed by an exaggerated sigh. His eyes rolled to the side. “This is the first time that you don’t wanna input your opinion? Finally hit a damn wall with enough dead leads, didn’t ya?”

A slight tug pulled at one edge of Connor’s mouth, working a tick underneath a rigid jawline. “Hilarious, Lieutenant.” He mumbled.

“It was a pretty damn good joke in my opinion." With a dismissive hand gesture--a quick slice of his hand through the air--he reached across his desk to retrieve one stack of case files. It didn't account for the other large piles but hell, it was a start.

“That is a personal opinion.”

“What the fuck ever.” Running a shaky hand through his hair--something else that Connor blamed on Hank's poor diet--his gaze never left him, flicking over his rigid form with a blatant curiosity. "We should go talk to Markus. There’s a good chance that he would know somethin'?"

And then Connor moved from his perch. Carefully--stiffly was a better way of putting it--around the edge of the desk. Long precise fingers fumbled for the coin in his pocket. It rolled across his knuckles, coming to a complete stop as it was flicked into the opposite palm. Hesitation made the movement rigid, not as fluent as it normally would be. A tick worked itself underneath a rigid jawline. Connor didn't look at him, and instead passed by to his own desk.

"You haven't seen him since the peace rally," Hank prodded. "I think it's about time we paid him a visit, don't you?"

"I don't know," He answered in what was almost a whisper, voice low. Unsure. "I've assessed the database's files and all of the reports involving our missing androids. I have only come to the conclusion that older models, or new deviants are being reported disappearing from Jericho. That and it's still limited to Detroit and only a few surrounding cities.” He shrugged. “So far."

Connor shook his head in defeat. "My most recent solution was to send a scan parts to Cyberlife, but-"

"All of the missing reports we’ve managed to solve end with the android self destructing and destroying their systems," Hank finished for him. "That and its considered murder with your rights. Can't just go pulling apart an android and not expect to get your ass busted."

"I do not know if an exception can be made for some kind of malfunction. I could probe its memory, but there is no evidence as to how that would affect my own systems."

"Keeping you at a distance makes the shit harder." Hank agreed, and other than nodding in response, Connor offered no comment. "Until we can figure out if it can be spread, there isn’t much that you can do."

"Why don't you take your chances and see what the hell happens?" An all too familiar and unapologetically arrogant voice drew closer to their desks. Gavin came to a full stop at their desks, arms folded over his chest with a smirk that never ceased to infuriate him. Both of them, he assumed.

He grimaced.

Fucking asshole.

"Fuck off, Reed. Don't you have your own case?" Hank grumbled, an edge to his tone that Gavin brushed off a condescending smirk.

"Unlike you and the plastic prick, I've actually made headway." Gavin boasted, his interest in Hank diverted to Connor who watched passively. Most of the time he acted as if Gavin was gum under his shoe that he could scrape on the sidewalk and be done with. Like he couldn't be bothered even when he had a gun in his face and death threats on his name. Hank had been guilty of that look once.

Gavin was full of shit, but Hank wouldn't put anything past him. Even now.

"Hey plastic," Gavin halted in front of the android, squaring up his shoulders. The situation would have been alarming if the difference in height wasn't so obvious. Reed had to look up to address him and Connor responded by raising his eyebrows, tilting his head to the right.

"Hello, Detective Reed."

"I thought that after the walking toasters were suddenly recognized as people you would leave. A detective android prototype hunting androids is still doing the exact same damn thing." He sneered.

"I assessed that it would be appropriate to remain in the android crimes department to further offer my assistance to the DPD." His hands folded in front of him, meeting Gavin's eyes with that usual infuriatingly neutral expression. The little twitch in Connor's facial features gave him away however, signaling his annoyance at the detective's harsh jobs.

Gavin didn't see it, but Hank knew him well enough that it was impossible to miss.

"Yet you're still wearing your Cyberlife threads. I'd almost think that you liked hunting 'em down. Does it give you a sick thrill, prick?"

"Reed!" Hank interjected, rising stiffly from his desk chair. "That's enough."

"I believe that wearing my uniform shows more professionalism than a leather jacket and a relentlessly hostile attitude, Detective." Connor's brows raised and relaxed sequentially, a slight and subtle twitch pulling at one corner of his mouth.

"The hell did you just say to me, tin can?" Gavin leaned forward, hand clenching at his side into a fist that he pulled back and took aim on the android.

"I said that's enough!" Hank barked, shoving himself in between them.

Gavin was shoved back a few steps.

Connor didn't budge.

"Back off! Can't you ignore him for five fucking minutes?"

"Fuck," An enraged gaze flicked between Hank and Connor. Gavin snarled in frustration, one hand slipping seamlessly into the pockets of his jacket, the other pointing an accusing finger in the android's direction like it hadn't been the detective that had approached them with the intention of starting shit.

Hank scoffed.

"I'll never so much as tolerate the plastic asshole. The day there are two of him is the day I put in my resignation." One last threatening glare was thrown their way, the threat released into a spat. Before either could comment, Gavin was storming off, cursing incoherently under his breath.

Surprisingly it had gone better than most of the other times. Hank would have admitted that.

Evidently, every altercation passed by Connor without a second thought. Hell, maybe not even a first. The evidence room incident remained the only time that the android actually retaliated on him. That being that he needed to in order to accomplish his mission.

Still, he caught Connor's expression as Gavin was leaving. He watched him through distrusting slits, LED flashing yellow for a split second before correcting itself. His jaw was tense, something dark stirring within him, something troubled that Hank didn't quite recognize. It was only when Hank actually decided to speak that Connor finally looked at him, eyes softening into something more calm, relaxed. Normal.

"Let's go ask Markus some questions. Any idea where he might be?" In a gesture of reassurance that didn't quite reach him, Hank placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Markus has been overseeing the conversion and stock of dormant androids at the remaining Cyberlife stores. We can pull up those that have yet to be listed as maintenance and distribution centers and start there." And as if nothing had changed, as if the threat from the DPD's most eccentric detective had already been forgotten--at least it would have been if he wasn't squirming underneath a clenched jaw--the task of talking to Markus seemed to unnerve him more. Talking to the deviant leader was a task that Connor was less inclined to do over listening to Reed berating him every chance he got.

The observation was a question for later, and truthfully Hank didn't anticipate an answer.

Connor stepped back to allow him through first, Hank's hand slipping from his shoulder to dangle uselessly at his side instead. Expression falling flat, he waved him through. "After you, Lieutenant."

#detroit connor #hank and connor #detroit become human #post revolution #peaceful ending #one year later #fanfiction #long fic #dbh connor #connor dbh #detroit: become human #hank dbh #dbh hank #hank anderson

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seyaryminamoto · 4 years

Note

"So… to answer your earlier question, no, I never stopped to think that maybe one day I'd fall in love with someone, and that I'd REGRET my encounters with those women BY THEN." Now I quoted right. This is a contradiction. There a some contradictions regarding this in your fanfic and answers. The same with having an erotic dream. He regrets it now. Because he didn't think he would fall in love with Azula.

I’ve likely said I’m done answering asks of this nature a thousand times. Hell knows why I’m bothering to do it now, but I really think it’s the last time I’ll bother, despite I ALREADY know that nothing I say will actually register in your head.

You refuse to accept any arguments I’ve presented to you, perhaps because you don’t bother reading my answers to give them actual thought, as you’re stuck in your perception of Sokka as some appalling, disloyal man despite the fact that he’s been 100% devoted to Azula since he first accepted his feelings for her properly (chapter 55). He has been with her, in-story, for about 2 years already, and he has never shown the slightest interest in any women besides Azula throughout those years.

But according to you, he’s the worst because he had one erotic dream about someone else before he had any sort of relationship with Azula, and because of his nightmarish experiences in Hui Yi.

Okay. My bad. You’ve finally convinced me of WHY I shouldn’t have panned over those two years in Hui Yi and jumped right in with the story I wanted to tell. Maybe if I had gone the show-don’t-tell route with that, despite I didn’t particularly want to, I wouldn’t be receiving asks like yours. And boy, I really would like that.

Warning: I’m really at my wits’ end. I thought to tone down my answer. I even did in many ways. But consider my patience tried, tested and broken, and if I sound far more aggressive and outraged than usual, it’s because I am. Please, learn from that, if you won’t learn from anything else.

So, apparently Gladiator’s Sokka must be some sort of terrible person, going by your fixation with this topic, and a bad love interest for Azula, because he doesn’t regret what happened in Hui Yi, in the classic sense of the word, right away. And I suppose you expect me to back down on this and say you’re right, oh no, he totally SHOULD have regretted it all along!

Well, the truth is, Sokka regrets one very specific thing all along: being stuck in a situation where he has no choices, where he has to live by the fucked up rules of someone like Huang Li. THAT is what he regrets. And NO, that is not a contradiction. I’m bluntly stating it. It’s a FACT. It’s something every last one of his recollections about Hui Yi is permeated with.

Why doesn’t he regret what he did with SEVEN, btw, SEVEN girls in Hui Yi? And I specify this because I suspect it was you who sent an ask about how it was ELEVEN? Checking 112, I find Sokka said in the middle of his explanations to Azula that eleven people survived: he’s talking about the GLADIATORS at that point, something that should be obvious by context, but apparently I have to waste hours of my time spelling things out one by one to anons, huh? That comment is NOT about how many people he was with, this is about the gladiators who had survived by the time Azula bought him off Huang Li. He outright told Azula the exact number of girls in the previous chapter, and she reached her own conclusions. That you (or whoever it was) misreads the chapters to this extent just to piss yourselves off further is proving how POINTLESS this entire debate is. You people (or you alone) don’t want to hear reason. You want to poke holes into the story that aren’t even there, to demand retribution from a fictional man who already went through hell on earth, just because he wasn’t 100% pure and untainted when he reached Azula’s bed. I’ve asked you to have empathy for his character before, clearly that you still send asks like these proves my request has gone to waste.

Well, let’s come back to the point: why doesn’t he regret it? BECAUSE OF THE FIRST WOMAN. Because of what happened to the one he outright put a stop to, because this wasn’t what he wanted, and the woman stopped indeed because she didn’t want to have sex with Sokka any more than he wanted it with her, and then they spent hours talking, and he offered her an emotional sort of comfort by being a decent guy who let her relax instead of forcing her to do things she wouldn’t want to...

AND THEN SHE GOT HER HAND CUT OFF FOR IT. AND SHE WAS TREATED AS A LESSER SLAVE AND HUMAN BEING BECAUSE OF IT.

According to you, upon hearing this story from the next girl who went for him, Sokka should’ve been like “Well damn, I do feel sorry for lady #1, the only person I’ve ever bonded with in Hui Yi, she’s been crippled for life and might even die from an infection for all I know, considering how damn hygienic Hui Yi has always been, but you see, lady #2, I must keep my body ~pure~ because one day I’m going to fall in love with someone and she won’t be with me if I was with sex slaves, despite I could ensure no other girls have to go through what lady #1 went through if I actually do sleep with you”. At least, that’s what I’m understanding out of your asks.

Well, great. Then he would’ve condemned this second girl to the exact same fate as the first :)

And the third :)

And however many there might have been :)

According to you, he should regret that he was with them right away, no matter if he actively felt like shit about what was going on, if it was the darkest period of his life: well, HERE is why he doesn’t regret it. Because if he HADN’T done it, those girls would’ve had it WORSE. The fact that I need to spell this out to you, in this way, is frankly ridiculous to me. You really could’ve reached that conclusion on your own if you had just TRIED, which makes me think you’re not trying at all. Anyone who’s old enough to read M-Rated fiction should be capable of connecting such basic, obvious dots. That you refuse to do it only to barge into my inbox demanding for me to explain every writing decision I make that you dislike, really doesn’t speak well of you.

So no, Sokka doesn’t REGRET what happened with those women right away because he was doing what he could to ensure they wouldn’t be tortured or maimed, at worst even KILLED, if it was discovered they hadn’t “fulfilled their duties”. Oh, but he would have been a damn great person if only he had decided to retain his “integrity” instead of saving innocent people’s lives, according to you...! :’D

Well, turns out if he had chosen to retain his integrity above all else, he probably would be dead by now. Because he wouldn’t have ever defeated a single gladiator in Hui Yi, not even the first one he fought, because he would have refused to kill anyone who wasn’t truly his enemy.

And there we go, story over :’) thank you for this glimpse into how short Gladiator would be if Aang was my protagonist. Very nice.

So of course, I suppose you’ll ask now why does he regret having done this years later, if he wasn’t sorry back then and his argument is so solid (not that you’ll think it is, why even imagine you would? Apparently sex slaves deserve to die, as far as I can understand of what you’ve said so far)?

He regrets it now because, with that much distance between himself and what happened in Hui Yi, with that much time spent with someone he grew to love beyond he ever belived possible, he would MUCH RATHER have been a complete novice at everything and discovered everything about sex with her.

“Truth be told, I would have rather not been experienced at all… then again, if I hadn't been, our first time would have been a disaster, but… but it might have been worth all the more to learn all about this together, huh?”

He HATES that he had no choice but to go for it back then. He’s not proud of it in the least. If rejecting them wouldn’t have had such violent, catastrophic results, he would have always pushed them away. But he didn’t do that, AND he owns up to it in those chapters, even though he expects Azula will be as merciless as you appear to be and conclude he’s not worth her time anymore. Curiously, Azula actually understands that Sokka’s actions, especially those from BEFORE they were anything but enemies, back when he absolutely hated her, aren’t representative of who he is NOW. I can’t quite understand how that’s a concept that eludes you so badly, Anon.

Now, about the damn matter of him having an erotic dream about someone other than Azula, BEFORE having any about Azula (in case you didn’t notice, Sokka doesn’t tell June exactly WHEN he had this dream, so if you’re assuming it happened in recent times you’re basically only doing that to further rile up yourself against him? Which is, quite honestly, like shooting yourself in the foot): I take it you’ve never had any dreams in your life, have you, Anon? And I don’t mean erotic ones, I mean ANY dreams, whatsoever: can you control your dreams? Because if you can, boy, you’re pretty darn impressive! I’ve had some really ridiculous dreams, one that comes to mind was that I standing on a tight rope that I was suspended right above a waterfall, and I was about to fall. I was panicking like never before, despite the fact that, in real life, I’m not afraid of heights, I’ve never had any experiences with tight ropes and I think waterfalls are beautiful. And this is just ONE example, one very random example, of how dreams aren’t at all representative of a person’s true self.

Now then, please, tell me why on earth are you trying to hold this fictional man accountable for a completely random dream he had, BEFORE he had anything romantic with his love interest??? Can’t you tell how utterly unreasonable this is? It’s blowing me away that you’re not only clinging to this topic so badly, in this obsession to turn Sokka into some sort of monstrous, inadequate, terrible love interest for Azula, but that you’ve brought up this subject of him dreaming about one other woman in previous asks and submissions (that I didn’t answer because of how hard I facepalmed at them), as if it were ultimate proof of how untrustworthy he is. Normal people CAN’T control their dreams. Azula COULDN’T control her dream about Ursa back in Ember Island’s arc, she also couldn’t control the absolutely ridiculous dream she had in the Northern Air Temple, where she claims she’s carrying a baby for a friend! Are you going to come after her next, demanding that she is held accountable for having claimed she was carrying someone else’s fictional baby instead of proudly owning up to having a kid with the love of her life? Because, if you can tell that dream is just a pile of ridiculousness, I can’t see how you take this one of Sokka’s, which wasn’t even written because it was utterly irrelevant to the story, to mean ANYTHING. ESPECIALLY when said dream is explicitly said to have happened BEFORE he dreamt about Azula, which, once he wakes up, is what triggers his conscious, first real thoughts about Azula as a love interest!

*heavy breathing* Okay. Okay. That’s a lot to say. But I think I’m not done yet. I’m going to take advantage of this ask to quote a few things that have showed up in my inbox, that I didn’t reply to because I didn’t feel like it, plainly:

I wanted to know if Sokka would go the same way he did in the beginning with replacing Azula if she WOULD NOT be a princess?

... Why the hell is this even a question? The ENTIRE problem posed by Sokka and Azula’s relationship is that she IS a Princess and he’s a slave! Azula knows it! Sokka knows it! They both have thought and even outright said it countless times! How the heck does anyone, whether the same Anon as before or another one, if you were different people, read an ENTIRE story predicated on forbidden love between a Princess and a slave and not understand that the two main reasons these two SHOULDN’T want to be together, in the earliest arcs of the story, are:

She is RESPONSIBLE for turning him into a slave, which then caused him to spend 2 years suffering in what I THOUGHT was the worst possible depiction of the Fire Nation’s darkest tendencies but it apparently went over all your anon heads: he spent TWO YEARS holding the worst grudge against her for this, a grudge he still hasn’t completely let go of at chapter 28, hence why he continues to tell himself, back in those days, that he should hate her and why he doesn’t want to fall in love with her...

SHE IS A PRINCESS AND HE IS A SLAVE AND THERE’S NO WAY THEIR LOVE WILL HAVE A HAPPY ENDING UNLESS OZAI DIES, AZULA IS CROWNED AND SHE GETS TO MARRY HIM SO THEY CAN DO WHATEVER THEY WANT.

Seriously. It doesn’t take that much braining. It’s bloody stated constantly through the story. Will you people stop wondering why it’s important that she’s a Princess once we FINALLY reach Part 3 and the obvious consequences of their big romance are known? Or are you going to continue pretending there’s no reasons, whether characterization or world-building reasons, why these two have been keeping their relationship secret, and why the struggled that badly to cope with the feelings they developed for each other when they were in denial about it ages ago?

Anyways, if I really HAVE to answer this question, NO, if Sokka had started having feelings for a non-royal Azula and he didn’t think he’d ruin her life by acting on them, he wouldn’t have tried to flirt with Suki. He wouldn’t have slept with June. He wouldn’t have done any of the things he did in that arc, his reservations towards Azula wouldn’t be as strong as they are BECAUSE she’s a Princess, which means that being with her could outright cause her life to go to hell and he’s pretty sure he doesn’t want that for Azula, even before he accepts his feelings for her. If he wouldn’t ruin her life, he probably would have been reluctant anyways due to their unresolved bad blood (point #1 up there?), but he wouldn’t have been so sure they CAN’T be together, so he wouldn’t even have flirted with Suki and this entire plot arc wouldn’t be necessary.

But that’s NOT the story we’re getting. Why? BECAUSE AZULA BEING A PRINCESS IS ESSENTIAL TO THE STORY??? I MEAN??? IS THIS REALLY SOMETHING I HAVE TO EXPLAIN??? SHE IS ONE IN CANON??? SHE IS ONE HERE??? WHY WOULDN’T SHE BE A PRINCESS???

... Dear god, have mercy on me. You really make me feel like I have devoted 7 years of my life to a huge waste of time if I can’t even get the most obvious plot points of the story across to you people.

One girl instance maybe but my shipper heart could never make Sokka get involved with SO MANY girls. 11? Will it keep growing?

This is the one Anon I was talking about earlier. Ha. Fucking HILARIOUS. Not only purposefully misunderstanding that it’s ELEVEN GIRLS, but asking if the number of girls Sokka will get involved with will increase beyond an already false number? Are you FUCKING KIDDING ME?

What does commitment mean to you, goddammit. What do you even think the word stands for? Seriously, if you were to fall in love with someone, and then it doesn’t work out, but you find a second person later who seems perfectly nice and everything you DO need... would you say “Oh no but I already soiled myself by loving someone else, I AM UNWORTHY OF YOU!!”, because you made a commitment in the past that didn’t pay off, which, for some fucked up reason beyond my understanding, means you can’t commit to someone new?

This is Disney Romance logic. Hell, Disney Romances are more complex than your thinking, actually! Anna from Frozen is ready to marry Hans, ends up realizing Hans was an asshole at the worst possible timing and goes for Kristoff later instead: are we going to stone her for not realizing Hans was the worst right away? How on EARTH could she commit to Kristoff now, when she had been ready to be with another guy BEFORE she even met him?!?!

Another example: Meg from Hercules! She falls for a guy, literally SELLS her soul to Hades for him, and the douchebag ditches her for another girl. At this point, Hercules (at least, film-wise) has been a perfectly pure virginal boy and he falls for Meg dorkily: IS MEG THE WORST WOMAN EVER, UNWORTHY OF HERCULES AND ALL HIS HARD WORK FOR HER, BECAUSE SHE ALREADY HAD LOVED ANOTHER GUY BEFORE HIM AND HERCULES DOESN’T HAVE AS MANY EXPERIENCES WITH LOVE AS SHE DOES???

Sounds extreme? Well, that is literally what that question sounds like to me, Anon.

People in this world get into as many relationships as they want to. People don’t always find love right away. People can fall in and out of love. People can have meaningless encounters with others just because they feel like it.

And even then, there’s a chance any of those people will eventually find someone they will be happy with, for good, for the rest of their lives! Why the HELL would their past have anything to do with their ability to commit to the “right” partner in the future? Commitment ISN’T about having no romances or relationships with anyone else until you found the right person: commitment is about THE RIGHT PERSON. It’s about CHOOSING that person, for good, for the rest of your life if that’s how you want it! If you’re “committed” to someone but all you ever do is look at how many people they were with before you, or thinking “he’s gonna cheat on me as soon as I tear my eyes off him”, YOU HAVE A PROBLEM. IT’S NOT YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER, IT’S YOU.

Because you don’t trust the guy! Because you refuse to believe his commitment to you is real! And hell, in some cases, maybe it’s not real! Maybe the person in question is going to cheat on you! But in some cases it is, and how the FUCK would you feel if you were in a relationship with someone who keeps assuming your love for them isn’t real? Someone who thinks your commitment to them is false because as soon as you find a better offer, you’ll go running and ditch them, no matter if you have said and proven you love them a thousand times? If that person kept trying to control who you’re friends with, who you talk to, if you’re close to anyone you COULD MAYBE HAVE any romantic history or attachment to? That’s fucking TOXIC. And that’s a thousand times worse than ANYTHING I’ve written between Azula and Sokka, just an FYI. I honestly despise how this shit has been romanticized often by newer generations, such as boyfriends or girlfriends going through their partner’s messages with other people to make sure they’re not being cheated on: this is sick. It’s stupid to be with someone if you’re CONSTANTLY SECOND-GUESSING YOUR RELATIONSHIP. FOR THAT MATTER, DON’T BE IN A RELATIONSHIP AT ALL.

And see, Azula hasn’t second-guessed Sokka in ages. She really hasn’t. After that conversation in 112, Azula UNDERSTOOD what I’ve been trying to tell you all along: Sokka’s past doesn’t determine his future. He often made mistakes, bad decisions, mostly making them as a consequence of the pain he has endured, but he’s making a constant effort to make the right decisions by Azula since AGES before they have this conversation. After June he has no other one-night-stands. He shows no real interest in any other girls. He outright begged Azula to help him get rid of his goddamn stalker, who HARASSED him and left her goddamn underwear in his bed (he bloody CHANGED the entire bed due to how disgusted he was by this behavior).

Please, explain: how the fuck you see a guy who has spent about 125 chapters conscisouly growing, developing and fully commiting himself to a girl as a guy who will cheat on her and have more relationships and find more girls?

Want me to come out with something you won’t see coming, dear Anon?

AZULA IS GOING TO HAVE AN EXPERIENCE WITH SOMEONE OTHER THAN SOKKA IN THE FUTURE, EVEN AFTER HAVING COMMITTED FULLY TO HIM IN EVERY SENSE THAT COUNTS. THE CRIME YOU’RE SO DAMN AFRAID SOKKA WILL COMMIT? IT’LL BE AZULA COMMITTING IT, NOT HIM.

And in the mean time, Sokka won’t ever be with anyone but Azula until the time he dies :’) something I’ve ALREADY answered in many asks in the past.

Wow. Spoilers much? Well, you fucking asked for it. I’m so damn tired of this, Anon. I’m seriously, SERIOUSLY, tired of this. But I HAVE to keep going :’) because if I don’t? You’ll come back. And I really don’t want you to.

Why did you absolutely want to make Sokka sleep with someone different that day? From my get Sokka was already angry at Azula and the things would've been not any different if he wouldn't have done it. So why did you have the need to make him sleep with someone that badly when things wouldnt be any different. Only the falling into forest wouldve been a bit different. I can't see why this sleeping with someone was so neccessary. Why was it important for you?

Why did I absolutely want it? I didn’t. I actually didn’t.

Here’s a funny secret: my beta at the time was the one to suggest Sokka could do this. I wasn’t exactly big on the idea, until the character of June popped in my head and I realized that actually might work within the story: she’s not only physically similar enough to Azula that I could get away with basically writing it as a Sokkla hate-sex scene until Sokka realizes it’s not her, but June is also a completely free-spirited character whose entire priorities in the world are money and her shirshu. That’s literally it. With a character like June? There was no need to worry about the unpleasant twists I often see in fics where the main couple aren’t together yet, and either one or both members of the couple go for other people until they finally choose to be together: June WASN’T going to fall in love with Sokka. She doesn’t give a flying fuck about him. She’s amused by the situation until she’s annoyed by him. Then she’s amused again when she connects the dots once she sees Azula and Sokka at the nasty town where they bump into each other. And she ONLY grows fond of Sokka at the same time as she grows fond of Azula: IN JEONG JEONG’S ARC :’) Before that? These two probably don’t even cross her mind outside of hearing occasional rumors about Azula, and then she probably just used to go “lol I wonder if she finally had the guts to make a move on him”.

Hence, June was my ideal choice. She didn’t care. She doesn’t give a single fuck in 28. She’s just in it for her own amusement, for her own satisfaction. Anyone else? An OC, Suki, anyone else who could’ve crossed my mind? They might have actually developed feelings for Sokka. And I didn’t want THAT. Hence, I didn’t do that. I chose June because I wanted this to be a bad moment that would stay in the past with no chances of rekindling in the future.

Now, why did I follow suit with my beta’s suggestion? Because she was right about one thing, at the time: Sokka isn’t committed to Azula at this point. Sokka is furious upon thinking he’s fallen into Azula’s web and he refuses to play her game. That he ends up sleeping with someone else, and going to her that night, and shouting all the things he does, was Sokka’s attempt to defy Azula’s eagerness to control his life, which, yes, she is attempting to do just that. She’s developing feelings for him, sure, but she doesn’t want him to be free to choose because she’s SURE he won’t ever choose her. A main element in Azula’s Part 1 character development was meant to be about teaching Azula that upon building a real, honest bond with Sokka, he’d end up choosing her above everything else, WHICH, BY THE TIME SHE’S LEARNED TO GIVE HIM SUCH FREEDOM, HE DOES.

Sokka isn’t a perfect romance lead. I never planned for him to be that. I have written perfect romance leads! Fact is, Rui Shi is basically that, isn’t he? So I don’t even have to dig around to find an example. Sokka was NEVER meant to be perfect. And his starting point with Azula is DREADFUL. He is absolutely attracted to her physically, but his constant resisting of their attraction results in him making terrible mistakes that he has to own up to, AND HE DOES :’) Constantly. He doesn’t EVER force Azula to think she must be committed to him, because he doesn’t even feel worthy of her most the damn time! All of it, due to those mistakes he made! Azula outright has to tell him to forgive himself because he just won’t do it! :’D He’s even worse about this than you are, Anon, fancy that!

And why isn’t Sokka a perfect romance lead, even if I’ve done my very best in recent arcs to make him as romantic and caring and giving towards Azula as he possibly can be? Because I don’t care for writing a static, boring, simplistic story. I just don’t. There’s too much baggage, too much drama, too many things Sokka and Azula HAD to resolve before their relationship reached the heights it has.

So, sure, let’s imagine Sokka doesn’t sleep with June. Then, Azula doesn’t know he’s ever been with someone else, because he’s ashamed of what he HAD TO DO in Hui Yi and doesn’t want her to know about it anyhow: once she finds out about it, she’ll feel a thousand times more betrayed than she already did because she would have wrongfully assumed he was every bit as pure as she was. How NICE it would be if he hadn’t been with anyone that night! :’)

But let’s focus on the plot for a sec, will we? Forget about Xin Long: if Sokka hadn’t met June beforehand, and she doesn’t understand what’s up with Sokka and Azula, June won’t give a single crap about Azula’s plight and won’t tell her where the Rough Rhinos went :’) then, chances are the Rough Rhinos escape. And if the Rough Rhinos escape, Azula’s first big successful mission is a failure. She doesn’t get lost with Sokka in the forest, she doesn’t find her dragon, she fails her father and she probably won’t have many other opportunities to prove herself in the future. Iroh gets away with proving Azula can’t fulfill Ozai’s expectations, and probably uses this as leverage to convince more of Ozai’s court that Zuko is a better candidate for the throne, considering he’s already the firstborn child :’)

LOVELY, ISN’T IT??? :’)

Sokka wasn’t that angry until he does sleep with June, because by then he confirms what he already suspects: he can’t get Azula out of his mind, no matter what. His ENTIRE plan with June (and Suki) was to get involved with any other woman so he could get rid of his feelings for Azula by basically transferring them to someone else. To break free from Azula’s influence on him. Why?

BECAUSE HE DOESN’T WANT TO LOVE THE WOMAN WHO, EVEN IF INDIRECTLY, PUT HIM THROUGH THE HELL OF HUI YI.

THE WOMAN WHO DRAGGED HIM AWAY FROM HOME.

THE WOMAN WHO HOLDS HERSELF RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYTHING THAT WENT WRONG IN SOKKA’S LIFE, EVEN IF SOKKA HIMSELF WON’T HOLD HER ACCOUNTABLE FOR MOST OF THESE THINGS ANYMORE.

No, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for him to feel this way about Azula. They had been getting to know each other for a few months, sure! But half that process had been arguments and spats, clashes and problems that sometimes had terrible outcomes. Remember Azula was outright ready to ditch Sokka as her gladiator after his second fight? She was DETERMINED to do that, until she received a challenge by the Blind Bandit, and she took advantage of this challenge to TEST SOKKA. TO SEE IF HE HAD LEARNED HIS LESSON, ONLY FOR HIM TO END UP HALF-DEAD AS A RESULT.

Can’t you tell both of them made a thousand mistakes, ESPECIALLY at the start of the story?

IT’S NOT AN ACCIDENT. IT’S DELIBERATE. I WANTED THEM TO MAKE THOSE MISTAKES! BECAUSE CHARACTERS WHO MAKE MISTAKES LEND THEMSELVES FOR BETTER STORIES!

I am sick to my core of the Internet’s purity bullshit of the past years. It’s disgusting to me. The fact that I’ve read there are writers out there who are outright whitewashing their own characters’s worst traits in major media content instead of working them out narratively? It makes me want to hurl. This is NOT quality storytelling. If you, as a writer, choose a setting with specific strife and difficult themes, you don’t get away with shirking off those themes and pretending they’re not there because “oh no, someone will be uncomfortable and I can’t possibly risk that!” You don’t write a character as racist on one season only to downplay the racism in later seasons, with no development needed, so that people won’t hate that character as much as they used to (that link is a specific, direct example of what I’m referring to, one that hopefully will explain why, when my characters fuck up, I do my best to make them 1. own up to it 2. learn from it 3. never make the same mistakes again :’) but I don’t even know if you’ll bother watching five minutes of an explanation, considering you’ll probably stopped reading my reply about 5K words ago).

Hence, I wrote Sokka making the mistakes he made DELIBERATELY. 100% KNOWINGLY. I knew there would be people uncomfortable with it: I’M UNCOMFORTABLE WITH IT! I don’t like this particular element of my story! But do I think it was necessary? YES. Because with the conflict triggered by BOTH Azula and Sokka’s mistakes during the earliest arcs of the story, their characters DEVELOP. They GROW. They CHANGE. Without such development, there’s NO WAY the story would be where it is now. And maybe you’d be fine with that, but I sure as fuck am not. Gladiator isn’t exempt of flaws, of course it’s not, and I have no delusions of the opposite, but what you’re so obsessed with isn’t necessarily a flaw, it’s merely something you personally disliked and that you can’t seem to get over!

Which... begs the question. It really does.

WHY ARE YOU READING A STORY THAT MAKES YOU SO UNCOMFORTABLE?

I thought making Sokka work for Azula’s forgiveness to such humiliating extent (she literally walks over him at one point? He keeps shrinking and wincing and being completely mild and meek around her because he’s that sorry for what he did? He virtually STARVES himself in the forest so Azula can eat because she’s the one that matters, not himself?) would somehow make people like you, and as far as I know, many others, realize that Sokka was genuinely sorry. That Sokka had finally understood where he’d gone wrong, and that he would never misunderstand Azula’s feelings and intentions that way again.

Clearly, I was the one who was wrong. Because yep, it’s not just you, there’s a ton of people out there who can’t seem to get over what Sokka did in those chapters, or what he did in Hui Yi. And you know, I really think it’s unfair? Both on the characters, and on me as the writer? Because it’s not like I swept things under a rug, like in that link I gave you up there: I put Sokka through the wringer constantly, in fact, to the point where I even have thought it was too much! And beyond that... Sokka meant to stay by Azula’s side as her gladiator and nothing more, at first. Once they finally talk things through, that’s what they’re determined to be: there’s still lingering feelings, but their plan is to NOT act on them. And yes, it’s true, Sokka has one slip-up when Azula helps him cope with his feelings in chapter 50! But that’s what it’s framed as: a slip-up. He was impulsive, unable to hold back the emotions that led him to kiss her, and she kisses him back until they both realized this WASN’T supposed to happen between them ever again. Then, Sokka looks after Azula while she’s sick, and all his protective instincts are triggered... to the point where he realizes he outright LOVES Azula.

And even then, Sokka doesn’t act on his feelings again until Ember Island, point at which he only acts on them to show Azula she is NOT the monster she thinks she is. He does it FOR HER. He outright refrains from taking their exchanges as far as he deeply wanted them to go, because this is NOT ABOUT HIM. He wanted to make sure Azula would feel better, that she would understand she’s only human, and that her worst sides don’t make her any less human than anyone else.

My point is: I didn’t make Sokka work as hard as he did because he thought he’d get it on with Azula if he earned her forgiveness. I didn’t make Sokka fall in love with Azula while thinking only of himself, his feelings, his needs, above hers: IT’S THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF THAT. This guy is so in love with her he forgets himself with her, he’d die for her, hell, he’d even KILL for her, when one of Sokka’s biggest traumas EVER is about having to kill people. He doesn’t want to do that EVER AGAIN. And yet, if it’s for Azula’s sake, he will sacrifice his soul as many times as he must to keep her safe.

But the biggest thing I have to stress here? Sokka would have been willing to do every single one of those things for her even if Azula hadn’t wanted anything romantic to happen between them ever again.

If Azula had rejected him, kept him at bay, and the story had turned into an unbearable pining soap opera forevermore, Sokka would STILL do everything he has done for Azula. He wouldn’t expect her to love him back. He wouldn’t make demads of her in those regards. He would only love her as he does, because that’s what love is for this man. That’s what I developed him for. And if you don’t care to see it, Anon, that’s 100% on you, because I KNOW that’s what is there. You can’t simply take two instances of Sokka saying two stupid things and annul 188 chapters of Sokka developing into a man who would outright choose Azula OVER HIS OWN FAMILY. If you can’t understand the magnitude of this decision, how much it means for Sokka, SOKKA, to choose someone above his family? Above his people? Then you’ve got a real serious problem with grasping Sokka’s character. A very, very serious one. Probably since canon.

So... to finish off this particular subject: IT’S IMPORTANT FOR ME BECAUSE I WANT MY CHARACTERS TO GROW, CHANGE AND DEVELOP. AND THAT’S WHY I TOOK MY BETA UP ON THAT SUGGESTION AS I DID. I DON’T WANT MY CHARACTERS TO BE PERFECT RIGHT OFF THE BAT BECAUSE IT’S WRONG, IT’S BORING, IT’S NOT EVEN IC. IT MAKES NO SENSE TO ME, AS A WRITER, TO WRITE ABOUT CHARACTERS WHO CAN DO NO WRONG AND WHO NEVER HAVE TO CHANGE THEIR WAYS. BOTH AZULA AND SOKKA HAVE HAD TO GROW A TON THROUGHOUT GLADIATOR, AND IF YOU CAN’T SEE SOKKA’S GROWTH FOR YOURSELF, I’M PRETTY DAMN SURE IT’S BECAUSE YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE IT.

Sooo sick of people stories ALWAYS let men fuck be the lucky one and get the perfect woman who gives herself COMPLETELY to him. Then man says „its in the past I love you only" wtf? Sleep with others use it on Azula his 9th on the list. I respect you for being so strong and writing this as a girl. I get the crisis, so tired. Kudos Azula for letting herself in his arms so comfortably. I REALLY wish I could do this too. At least Suki and Song are lucky. Sorry for venting I'm just broken and stupid

I have no idea if this is you too. Maybe it is. But if not, I’m quoting it too, because why the fuck not. Why the fuck not.

I suppose I can at least commend this one for knowing Azula is the 9th rather than the 12th, huh? At least they read that much right.

To this Anon: please, stop venting about this to the writer who apparently disappointed you that badly for making a decision that is consistent with the situation the characters are in.

Frankly, I’m absolutely grossed out by the people who seem to think Azula, Princess Azula unto whom I’ve forced horrible purity societal pressures that ARE UNFAIR AND MAKE NO SENSE, AND SHE CONSTANTLY SAYS SO THROUGH THE STORY, should have had as many experiences as Sokka so that “they’re even”. The bloody audacity to look at what Sokka went through in Hui Yi and think “WELL BUT IT’S SEX SO AZULA SHOULD HAVE LOTS OF GUYS TOO!” completely BAFFLES me.

Literally, Azula’s ONLY experience before Sokka, AKA, CHAN, is a thousand times healthier and more genuine than ANYTHING Sokka ever went through. And nobody is fucking throwing a fit about that.

Why do I say this? :D

NOBODY WAS FORCING AZULA TO KISS CHAN. NOT IN CANON. NOT IN GLADIATOR

AZULA LIKED CHAN AND DELIBERATELY CHOSE TO GO FOR HIM BECAUSE SHE FELT LIKE IT. NO ONE WAS MAKING THIS CHOICE FOR HER.

AZULA WASN’T PRETENDING CHAN WAS SOMEONE ELSE WHILE SHE KISSED HIM. SHE WAS PERFECTLY FULFILLED BY KISSING A GUY FOR THE FIRST TIME BECAUSE THAT’S LITERALLY WHAT SHE WAS LOOKING FOR.

Meanwhile: Sokka is FORCED to be with the women in Hui Yi. Someone is going to outright either hurt or kill them if he doesn’t do it.

Meanwhile: Sokka didn’t necessarily like any of the women he was with, not the Hui Yi ones, not June. June merely wants mindless fucking, Sokka tells her from the start he doesn’t think it will work at all: IT DOESN’T. It’s JUNE being forward. At worst, Sokka can be blamed for not putting a harsh stop to June before anything happened. But he wasn’t even the one with the initiative: JUNE WAS. In Hui Yi, goes without saying, he didn’t get to choose, they basically would just go to him and he’d do what he had to do. The fucking end.

Meanwhile: Sokka was dead-like with June up until he lets himself imagine she’s Azula, the only way for him to actually go forward with what’s going on. Afterwards, HE’S APPALLED WITH HIMSELF. HE’S MISERABLE. HE’S UNHAPPY.

Azula had the normal, nice, socially acceptable teenage experience of having a brief crush on a guy and trying to see if something would come from it: SOKKA HAS BEEN A SLAVE EVER SINCE CHAPTER 2. Their social positions are MILES apart. And, as free as Sokka is to fuck whoever he wants: HE DOESN’T CHOOSE, DELIBERATELY, TO DO SO. He only does it in Hui Yi and with June, and after realizing with June that this just won’t work because he won’t get Azula off his mind, HE DOESN’T SLEEP WITH ANYONE ELSE UNTIL HIS RELATIONSHIP WITH AZULA BEGINS.

You’re basically pretending that a slave, in the lowest of levels in society, lives his life freely without restraint, just as a girl at the top of the world can. They both have very specific problems: Azula is forced NOT to be with anyone until marriage, whether she wants someone or not, whereas Sokka ends up getting sex FORCED ON HIM. Completely, radically opposite sides of a spectrum that I’ve done my damnedest to build up believably and understandably. But all this just goes over your head, right? You’d much rather ignore and annul my entire fucking worldbuilding, just because it tickles you poorly that the guy in this story has more experience in sex than the girl. You’re throwing major themes in Gladiator out the window (Azula outright fighting to demand actual equality instead of the subtle, constant, undermining sexism the Fire Nation is permeated with), because it makes you personally uncomfortable for a girl to be a virgin and a guy not to be (despite, in this day and age, there’s A LOT of content in the world where characters involved are either perfectly virginal or equally promiscuous, and you could be enjoying that instead of reading Gladiator).

Newsflash: you’re just as bad as the people who demand virginity and purity from women if you demand it from men.

Nobody is LESS or MORE of a person because of how many people they sleep with. NOBODY. This shouldn’t even have to be said. I can’t even believe that it NEEDS to be, but I’m saying it anyways. It’s absolutely STUPID to me that there’s readers out here that weigh everything in regards of how many people someone has been with. What sort of backwards mentality is this?

By far, Gladiator-wise, NO ONE has slept with as many people as Ty Lee has.

NO ONE.

Where’s the goddamn shitfest at Ty Lee for this? Haru had a few experiences before being with her, sure! But they were NOTHING compared to the amount Ty Lee had. Ty Lee did whatever the hell she wanted since her teenage years, with whoever she wanted, and she got away with it until she was caught. Then, Azula stepped in to help her avoid total social annihilation! :’D why?

BECAUSE IT SHOULDN’T MATTER HOW MANY PEOPLE TY LEE HAS BEEN WITH. BECAUSE AZULA KNOWS TY LEE’S WORTH AS A HUMAN BEING HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HOW “PURE” SHE MAY BE BEFORE MARRIAGE.

JUST AS AZULA’S OWN WORTH IS FAR AND BEYOND AND ABOVE THAT SHIT :’)

And god, it’s just so ridiculous! Soooo ridiculous! That I’m out here, writing a huge story that’s meant to feature, eventually, the big fallout resulting of the discovery of Azula’s long-gone purity, a fallout that Azula will be fighting against with all her might, trying to defend her right to live her life, to love whoever she wants, to defend her worth and value as a person and resist the traditionalistic oppressive tyranny of her own FATHER...!

And you’re out here, fucking shitting yourself in rage, because Sokka has had more sexual partners and experiences than Azula.

It’s fascinating for the whole POINT of the story to soar so far over your head that you just can’t even see it anymore. For you to be so hung up on stuff Sokka did between chapters 2-3 and in chapter 28, AND NOTHING MORE, as if THAT is what determines Sokka’s worth as a human being and as Azula’s partner. And damn, try as I might, I can’t make someone learn better if they’re stuck with this mentality because they truly believe that if you’ve had more partners you’re somehow worse than by having less. I can’t. It’s up to you people to get over this attitude, because I can’t do more to teach you human nuance and complexity than I already have. I’m too tired to try anymore.

And of course, writers shouldn’t have to defend their work as I’m defending mine now. I should probably just lie down and take the criticism I’m tossed without complaint, shouldn’t I? I mean, haha, I also got this Anon, so very considerately, saying:

Hello I am that anon who asked you the Sokka sleeping with someone question. I think you shouldn't stress or get angry and hurt when you get question about this matter. It is a big and questiniongly part of your story. No one can judge your talent or you but people can ask questions about this or can't they? Its just that it was not neccessary for some readers seems like.

Which, I think, is probably the first person all over again.

I SHOULDN’T get stressed or angry or hurt? Oh, wow. So, on top of everything, I can’t even have feelings. I’m supposed to be a fucking doormat :’) beautiful. I love it.

Have you taken notice of how many asks I’ve already quoted in this answer? That’s not even half of what I’ve had in my inbox pertaining this subject, whether from you or someone else. Back when the story was starting? I got asks about this VERY OFTEN, by someone who eventually came back and apologized (and boy, do I hope that none of the asks I’ve quoted were sent by that person, I seriously hope they didn’t backtrack on their apparent understanding of what I was doing with the story), and I don’t even know how many others too. It was people, just like you, who would read over my answers and just cherrypick the story trying to find any excuses to villify Sokka and paint him as undeserving and ungrateful and I don’t even know what else regarding Azula and their bond. Whether because he slept with a “ton” of people or because he made her cry or because of whatever reason you want to choose.

... When Azula can be fucking held responsible for literally making Sokka suicidal.

Fucking grapple with that for a sec, can you? :’) Imagine what it’s like falling in love with someone who once hurt you so badly you thought you wanted your life to be over. Do tell me how easily you’d get over your reservations, LONG before this person even SAYS SHE’S SORRY. BECAUSE. HAHA. AZULA DIDN’T EVEN APOLOGIZE FOR IT FOR FIFTY-FIVE CHAPTERS. JUST AN FYI. AND NONE OF YOU. NOOOONE OF YOU. GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THAT DETAIL. IT’D BE HILARIOUS IF IT WEREN’T SO OUTRAGEOUS.

Anyways. Getting back on track: people HAVE asked questions about this. Constantly. Consistently. Without restraint, ever since I first wrote it. Without bloody bothering to go through my blog first and find out if maaaaybe I’ve already addressed their concerns. And the worst part? I’ve actually had many askers, countless anons, lots of people talking to me about many things. Yes, I’ve had a million arguments on Tumblr, and not everything ended well.

But pal. Pal. Guess what’s the only subject that KEEPS ON COMING RIGHT BACK, NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES I DEAL WITH IT, AND IT’S ALWAYS, ALWAYS, WITH THE SAME SPECIFIC “SOKKA IS THE WORST” FOCUS???? :’)

Think about something you did seven years ago. Be it something you were proud of, or something you’re sad about, or just something that you really don’t think much of anymore, because you’ve moved on from that since ages ago.

And then imagine spending seven years. Receiving questions. Constantly. Whether rude or not. Whether thoughtful or not (usually the latter, tbh). Whether necessary or not. Whether already answered or not. About that very thing you’ve been over. That very specific thing from SEVEN YEARS AGO.

I’m tired, Anon, of dealing with this specific subject, because everyone who has come to me with this BS has been a pain in the ass: THEY KEEP COMING BACK. YOU’RE NOT THE FIRST ONE WHO DOES. IT’S INCREDIBLE. I’ve answered a thousand asks, and I do get follow-up questions sometimes, but NEVER as many or as frequently as THIS! And the part that I just can’t believe is that there’s people who write stuff that are thousands of times more complicated than what I did here (in terms of giving the characters even MORE love interests, like, genuine love triangles and actual love involved rather than a mere quick thing), and I don’t see anyone giving them a single hint of grief for that. Not even a smidge, not even if they leave the subject up in the air or unresolved later on. I’ve read stories that feature pairings I’m absolutely uncomfortable with, actual pairings that have a longer lasting relationship in the story than the pairing I was reading for! There’s literally a story in another fandom where the main relationship lasts, what, 6 months? Maybe? And then they break up. And then the guy goes on to have a fuckbuddy for YEARS. Meaning, the relationship with the fuckbuddy is longer and more stable than the ship the story is actually marked for.

And I didn’t give the writer even the SLIGHTEST grief for it.

Why the hell do you (and everyone else who has been so hung up about this subject) feel the need, or the entitlement, to determine that I need to put up with these questions? That I somehow earned them and need to answer them every time? Because, heh, I outright stopped answering for a long time because I didn’t want to. Because I was TIRED. Because I hoped, fruitlessly, that if I didn’t give you guys the attention you were so desperate for, you’d eventually get bored or realize that I DON’T CARE FOR THIS SUBJECT ANYMORE. I AM OVER IT. I HAVE BEEN OVER IT FOR AGES.

But SOMEHOW, getting me to the point where I’d be stressed, upset, outraged and annoyed was absolutely worth it for you guys. Seriously, what the hell do you think I am? A big monolith that just spews words and has zero emotions whatsoever? I’ve given SEVEN YEARS of my life to this story. Have you ever done this for ANYTHING in your life? Have you ever devoted yourself to a project to this extent? No? Then you don’t get to dictate whether I should be annoyed, upset, angry, irritated or whatever the fuck I feel when I get asks as persistent, thoughtless and devoid of proper reflection as the ones I CONSTANTLY get over 28 and everything related to Sokka’s past with named and nameless women alike.

And hey, just so you know, someone recently said they thought it wasn’t necessary for Whaletail Island’s arc to end as it did. That there shouldn’t be a 1-year interval until Sokka can meet his family, his FATHER, again. That Katara, Aang, Zuko and Kino totally should have stayed outside the South Pole and helped fight against Ozai merely because the Gaang was FINALLY together!!!

... Conveniently forgetting the ENTIRE purpose for the South Pole group’s trip to Whaletail Island was for them to find food with which they could help a starving, dying village.

So excuse me if some people “questioning” my story doesn’t make me question my choices the way you guys apparently expect me to. Because at this point, the “questioning” I’m receiving is honestly so thoughtless, so poorly conceived, just done for YOUR SUBJECTIVE CONVENIENCE, without taking the full picture into account, even in situations like this one, where it’s bloody obvious Zuko won’t go fight the Fire Nation when his wife and child could be the next ones to bite the dust and that’s the whole reason he even left??? I’m not even talking about the bigger picture that I get to see as a writer, I mean the bigger picture in regards of character feelings and motivations... you people do see that. You have it, explained outright, perhaps too explained! Hell, if my literature teachers read Gladiator they’d likely cringe at how often I SPELL EVERYTHING OUT instead of leaving a few things for the reader to fill the gaps! Oh, but naaaaah, I have to come here, spend HOURS of my day answering asks about why Sokka got to sleep with people when Azula didn’t, and why do I think he’s loyal to her if he did that before he was committed to Azula, and if he’s going to sleep with more people because of COURSE, if he was with anyone else before her it means he will be again in the future...!

When I could be using all this time to actually work on stuff that I DO want to work on. Namely, building up the story further. With some very dark, serious, difficult developments that I’m trying to be in the right place to write.

And asks like these? They sure as fuck don’t help. Not only do they distract me, they have NOTHING to do with what I’m working on right now. I’ve considered the subject of Sokka’s past experiences as closed and DONE since chapter 112, and I don’t need you, or anyone else, to come to me and beg for more explanations than the pretty damn extensive ones you already got in a PRETTY DAMN EXTENSIVE STORY.

If you still read Gladiator at this point. If you reach chapter 187 and see a Sokka who hugs Azula, twirls her in midair, damn near crying of bliss because she said she loved him in public, in front of their siblings, a Sokka who is choosing to stay with her, without a shred of a doubt, with his heart COMPLETELY set on HER, instead of going back to a family who used to be THE ONLY THING he cared about in life, and you somehow conclude “this guy would totally cheat on Azula if he had the chance”... then I’m sorry but I HAVE every right to be angry. I have every right to be completely beside myself as I am.

Because you’re basically saying that I spent SEVEN YEARS developing this character, this relationship, this story, and it went to waste. Because you refuse to believe, for personal reasons, that Sokka is in any way deserving of his bond with Azula. Because somehow you think this is CONTRADICTORY, when merely looking at things with a slightly more open mind, reveals that this isn’t contradiction: IT’S NUANCE. It’s COMPLEXITY. It’s the fact that a character can change their mind about certain things, they can deplore certain mistakes they made, they can regret their actions in retrospect, and my characters? They sure do that. All the bloody time. Azula does it constantly, and for good reason. But it just goes right over your head, and it’s because you want it to. I refuse to believe you can’t understand what I’ve explained before, and what I’m explaining now: you don’t want to understand it, which is different. You want to condemn Sokka, and you want to feel validated in your discomfort about one specific, long-resolved plot point of the story, demanding for explanations of why it was necessary when you really don’t care for the explanations: you just wish it hadn’t happened at all.

And great! You can wish that all you like! Why the hell not? But you don’t get to pelt me day after day with criticism that falls apart easier than a card castle as soon as I take a look at what I wrote in the story, only to then pick ANOTHER quote, OUT OF CONTEXT, to once again present your case of why this is just wrong and bad and not written the way you want it to be.

I’ve received legitimate, valid criticism of many aspects of Gladiator. I always ended up feeling pretty bad after, but the valid ones? I realized, even if it hurt, that they were true. That some of that made sense. That, if I got to write this story all over again, I probably should fix those details and not get overwhelmed by my excitement to get to the meat of the story, which is why some developments of the introduction arc are so rushed compared to everything else. It was my inexperience, my mistake. I’ve made mistakes later on too, and I’ve taken note of them as well, despite I’m doing my best to incorporate them into the story as seamlessly as possible so that they even tie in with canon fairly well. In short, I don’t believe Gladiator is perfect, and sometimes when people tell me as much? I know they’re right. I take what I can from that, and learn from it, if possible.

But this? The criticism I’ve received for 28, and for Sokka’s past, is 100% subjective, CONSTANTLY. I’ve never read any that genuinely makes me go “oh well that’s a good point, maybe it’s OOC or maybe I could’ve done it differently to the exact same results without the same elements”. It’s always, to varying degrees, “I hate that you’re writing for one specific ship but allowed one member of the ship to have experiences with other people before he really got together with his one true love and I’m going to pester you about it until I finally get bored of making you rant and ramble for hours to no avail because I won’t listen to anything you say”.

So, yes. I feel justified in lashing right back at you for the backlash. Because this isn’t just you, it’s a lot of people, like you said! And you’re ALL free to hate what happened, I’ve never said you have to like it and I never will. But if you’re going to criticize? You’re open for criticism too. Fact is, if you wanted to actually talk about this properly? You’d get off anon and we’d have (I hope) a decent conversation via messaging about ALL that bothers you about this story. I’d even be a thousand times more civil than I have been so far! And why would I act so differently? Because you’re an anon. Because you’re HIDING. And from the shadows, you toss all this criticism at me and then whine because I don’t like it. Well, own up to your own shit too, Anon. If you wanted a real debate, if you had the ARGUMENTS for a real debate, we could have one just fine. But you don’t. And if you get the privilege of anonymity, I get the privilege of speaking my mind with zero regard of your feelings, because that’s basically how you, and all the anons I’ve quoted (whether they’re you or anyone else) have behaved as so far.

Yes, I write, and I post what I write online, which leaves the gateway open for criticism for sure.

It doesn’t give you the right to be this persistent of an asshole to the point of saying I have no right to be annoyed by your questions. You don’t have the slightest idea of how much work I’ve put into Gladiator for the past seven years. You don’t have the slightest grasp of character development if you don’t understand THAT is what’s been happening with Sokka all along. And you don’t get to decide how I feel about your asks, or anyone else’s.

You can send another ask about ANYTHING regarding this subject, be it my inability to handle “criticism”, or chapter 28, or chapters 111-112 and their respective revelations about Sokka’s past, or your presumed belief that Sokka will be with a thousand women despite he’s completely committed to Azula by now... but this time I mean it: YOU’RE NOT GETTING ANOTHER ANSWER OUT OF ME. I’ve had it. This is the last straw. I’m done discussing this subject, and I’ll outright change my askbox’s message for you to remember that if you try to pull this again.

Now then. Can I finally go back to working on my story, or must I continue to invest HOURS of my day spelling out all the writing decisions I’ve made that you can’t make your peace with?

Please, Anon: get over it. If you can’t, stop reading. You’ll be happier that way. And so will I. I’m in no place, emotionally, for this kind of BS on my inbox all the damn time. Give me a goddamn break if you truly have any respect for what I do.

#anon #gladiator chapter 28 #gladiator chapter 112 #I've had enough #this fucking answer is so long #and I know it won't serve any purpose #I mean if you've read enough to reach chapter 112 and still can't SEE the shit I'm spelling out for you #obviously an ask isn't going to fix anything either #but maybe?#maybe you'll understand how done I am with this #if nothing else #enough is enough

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huilian · 4 years

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Character: Cassandra Cain, Tim Drake, Jason Todd, Stephanie Brown, Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne

Summary: One person's hobby can quickly be the entire family's business, especially with a family like this (aka, Cass's adventures with ballet featuring her relationship with her siblings and Steph)

***

It’s rare that Cass would willingly sit in front of a laptop for an extended period of time for something that is not a case. It’s even rarer that her schedule would coincide with Tim’s enough to allow them to be sitting in front of their laptops together. (Well, separately, but in the same room at the same time. So, close enough to being together.)

It’s only because Tim has been expecting it for a few minutes now that the sound of a laptop being slammed closed doesn’t startle him. Tim looks up to find Cass putting her head into her hands while saying, “Ugh.”

“What’s wrong?”

“This… this damned website!” Cass all but shouts. “How am I supposed to know which shoes fit me best if I haven’t worn them ever? I’m reading your website to figure that out!”

“Umm… Cass?” Tim is now confused. Very confused. “Can you backtrack a little? What shoes?”

“Ballet shoes!”

“I thought you have them already? What shoes have you been wearing to class then?” Cass has been taking dance classes for months now. She must have ballet shoes, there’s little to no chance of her doing all those classes barefooted. Tim knows that ballet requires special shoes, which is about 50% of his current knowledge about ballet.

“Not those shoes. These are the… the… the pointe shoes!”

Tim is now even more confused. “So? There you go. The shoes you’re looking for are those pointe shoes.”

“No! There’re different kinds of them!”

“Huh?”

“Different brands and models and years and… and the endless modifications!”

“Okay.” Tim raises his hands placatingly. This sounds like an information problem, which he can help with. “Can I maybe, you know, look at the website? Maybe I can help?”

Cass slides her laptop to Tim. Tim closes his own laptop, then opens Cass’. Fifteen tabs greet him from the screens of Cass’s laptop. Tim sees that this is not the only window opened, and is then greeted with another three windows, each having tabs ranging from ten to thirty. Huh. It’s usually Tim who has that problem, opening too many tabs and windows and finding himself trapped in an information hellhole before he looks up to find that he has spent the entire day reading about the probabilities of oak tree getting struck by lightning.

Thankfully, that same thing has prepared Tim for this day. He quickly skims about every other tab. About a quarter of them is measuring tips, half of them are blogs with fitting and choosing tips, some are lists of pros and cons, and the rest are catalogs.

“Are all of these for choosing pointe shoes, Cass?”

“Yes,” Cass grits out.

“I… I never knew there are so many brands of pointe shoes.”

“Exactly! How am I supposed to choose if there’s so many of them!”

Tim, armed with his years of experience of sorting through bullshit on the internet, finds the most promising blog article titled ‘How To Choose Your Pointe Shoes: Guide to Getting the Best Shoes’ and starts to read.

“It says to go for a professional fitting? Maybe we should do that.” Cass makes a sound of protest. “I can start researching, but it’ll take ages and I’m not sure I’ll get it right. I’m pretty sure that poor pointe shoes fitting causes injuries, Cass. When do you need it anyway?”

Cass mumbles something. Tim, whose attention is now partially reading the section titled ‘Shank Strength’ and wondering what on earth a shank even is, doesn’t catch it at first. Then, the connecting nerves between his ears and his brain rebooted, and Tim screeches out, “Tomorrow? Yeah, no. We’re going to a professional fitting right now.”

“Ugh.”

“Cass,” Tim says, drawing out the syllable.

“Ugh.”

“Come on.”

“Ugh.”

“You’re seriously gonna make me read all of this before tomorrow? Have some mercy, Cass,” Tim teases. But seriously, he doesn’t want to have to read all of it in the short time-frame he has. He can do it, but then he’s gonna skip dinner and forgoes sleep and rest entirely and he just got Alfred to stop hounding him to go to sleep after his latest incident . He doesn’t want to have to do it again.

“You’re gonna do it anyway.” He is, but still. It’s the thought that counts. “Fine. It can’t be worse than comparing the box length of Grishko and Bloch.”

“Great! Let’s go!”

“Do you know where?”

Tim freezes. “Shit.” Now he still has to research the fitter in Gotham, and vet the places, and do all sorts of things he was hoping to not have to do by going to a fitter. Damn it.

Cass, being the absolute horrible sister that she is, just laughed at him.

“It’s your shoes, Cass! You do it!”

“No. You read about it. It’s your project now,” Cass smiles triumphantly.

“You are the worst.”

“I am the best.”

***

Jason only comes to the Manor to return Alfred’s pans, swear to god. There’s about half a dozen of Alfred’s pans (because even though it’s Bruce’s money that bought them, they are Alfred’s pans) in his latest apartment, and it’s getting ridiculous. Maybe take a book or two from the library while he’s there, because even with all of Bruce’s fault, he still keeps the library well-stocked with Jason’s favourite books.

So how come that leads to him being dragged by Cass to the Cave?

“Cass. Cass, please,” he tries.

Cass’ response is only to drag him even faster. How a girl half his size has the strength to drag him down the Cave’s stairs, Jason doesn’t know.

“Cass.”

“You said you don’t have anything else to do today. So you can do this.”

“Well, Cass, I-”

“It’ll be fun. You only have to sit. You can even read the entire time.”

“What if-”

“Alfred agrees.”

Jason sighs. “I doubt this is what he meant when he told you to go somewhere else to practice, Cass.”

“I asked him. He agrees.”

Jason sighs again. The problem is, she did ask Alfred, and Alfred did agree. Though why Cass chose to ask Alfred for permission to use Jason as a living, human barre for her ballet practice after Alfred banished her from using the kitchen countertop is a mystery. Maybe she thinks that Jason is not going to protest if Alfred said yes?

“Why me? You can have literally anyone to be your personal barre, Cass.”

“You are the right height.”

There’s nothing to say to that, is there? What’s Jason going to do, argue that he is not the right height? He doesn’t even know how high a ballet barre should be. Besides, Cass is right. Alfred already said yes, and he even went so far as expressing his delight in seeing Jason interacting with his siblings outside of their ‘nighttime activities’. So there’s that. There’s no arguing with Alfred when he had given out his verdict like that.

They arrive at the Cave, and then Cass drags Jason towards the empty space somewhere in between the sparring mats and the computer. Then, she lets Jason’s arm go, which should be enough of an opening for Jason to escape, but Jason knows what Cass can do. She’ll just catch him and drag him back. Jason accepts his fate and stays put even when Cass leaves his side to in search of a chair. Cass finds one, then drags it over, and then says, “Sit.”

Jason, who knows that this girl can easily force him to sit, sits. Cass smiles and nods her approval. She scrolls down on her phone for a while, and then music fils the Cave via the speaker system Bruce installed. Jason allows himself a small shake of the head. It’s just like Bruce to install a speaker system and then let it go to waste by preferring to brood in silence.

Cass puts her hand on Jason’s shoulder, and starts dancing. The hand is feather-light throughout her first combination, and Jason knows enough about ballet to know that this meant Cass doesn’t particularly need a barre to do the movements.

But. Well. It’s not half bad, watching his sister dance in between reading his book. That, coupled with the knowledge that Alfred is somewhere upstairs, most definitely preparing Jason’s favorite foods, made Jason relax.

“Stop moving!” Oh. Jason relaxing meant that his shoulder is now not in the same place it was before.

Jason smiles and says, “Sorry, sorry,” surprising himself that he actually meant the apology.

***

“Cass? Are you there?” Cass had promised to teach Steph a new throw today, but she’s not in the Cave, so Steph is now up in Wayne Manor, hoping she’ll find Cass in her room. “Cass? You promised to show me that throw, remember?”

Steph hears movement from inside Cass’ room, so she opens the door, considering Cass to be well and truly notified of her presence by her hollering in the hallway, only to be greeted with the sight of Cass with surgical tape and cotton balls in her hands. Steph goes to full-alert mode immediately, because anything or anyone that can get Cass to be hurt is a huge threat.

(Steph still hasn’t forgotten about Lady Shiva.)

“Cass, are you alright?” Steph says.

“I’m fine.”

“Where are you hurt? Do I need to call Alfred? Or dr. Thompkins?”

“I’m fine, Steph,” Cass’ voice is calm, but Steph has seen her take a bullet and still talks in the same calm voice as she is using now, so that is not an accurate meter to gauge Cass’ wellbeing.

“You’re holding bandages, Cass. You’re hurt.”

“I’m fine. Watch out for the bucket.”

“Bucket? What bucket?”

“That bucket,” Cass points to her right.

“Why do you need a bucket?” Steph pauses, then the implication of a bucket in Cass’ bedroom hits her. “Are you sick as well?”

“No, it’s for my toes.”

Toes? What? “Okay, back up. Your toes?”

“Ballet.” Oh. Oh . Now that Steph is no longer worried that Cass is going to bleed out, she realizes that Cass is not putting on the tapes, but pulling it off. Oh, again. “Can you push the bucket here?”

Steph pushes the bucket, which Steph now notices is filled with ice, towards Cass with her foot. Cass puts her feet inside, groaning all the way.

“Ballet?” Steph asks. It seems weird that something so innocent can make Cassandra Cain react this extensively. But again, Steph has long learned not to underestimate anything.

“Ballet,” Cass answers.

“Is it the pointe shoes thing? I’ve read about it somewhere. That’s why I don’t want to go into ballet,” Steph says, lifting up a towel that’s next to Cass and replacing its position.

“Yes.”

“Does it hurt?” Steph puts her head on Cass’ shoulders, looking up a while to check whether or not this is okay.

“Yes,” Cass says, both as an answer for Steph’s question and Steph’s unspoken question.

“Can you still teach me that throw?”

“Yes. Give me a few minutes.”

“Okay.” They sit in silence for a while, until Steph suddenly has a thought. “Is it weird that you can take bullets without flinching, but groans at this, or is it just me?”

Cass hums. “It’s a different kind of pain. Never had it before. Not prepared for it.”

“Okay, but is it weird, or is it just me?”

“It’s weird.”

“Are you ready to teach me that throw now?”

“Sure.” Cass pulls out her feet and motions for the towel. “Don’t expect me to go easy on you just because of this.”

Steph hands her the towel, and says, “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

***

Dick is walking down the hallways of the Manor when he hears Cass swearing from inside a bathroom. Normally, that wouldn’t be a cause of alarm, but since the only reason he’s at the Manor today is because Cass has a ballet recital and everyone is going to go watch it, Dick calls out, “Cass? Is there something wrong?”

“No!” Cass’ voice replies. “Yes! No! I don’t know!”

Okay, that warrants further investigation. “Can I come in?”

Cass makes an affirmative sound, so Dick opens the door, just in time to see Cass putting on false eyelashes in a truly dangerous fashion. As in, almost putting it straight into her eyes. Yeah, something is wrong.

Of course, the false eyelashes do not stick the way it’s supposed to, because Cass is not putting it on properly. Cass swears, again, and picks up the fallen eyelashes from the sink. Dick has seen enough.

“Do you know how to put those on?” Dick says.

“No! Why do they keep falling down? I’m doing it exactly the way they told me to!”

Dick takes a look to the false eyelashes on Cass’ hands, then to Cass’ eyes. “It’s too long for your eyelids, Cass.” Dick frowns. It has been a while since he has to handle false eyelashes. “At least, I think that’s why they keep falling down.”

Cass, who has been furiously dabbing glue to the false eyelashes, looks up to him with wide eyes. “You know how to do this?”

“I mean… I guess, yeah? My mom used to put this on for performances. She would let me help, sometimes.”

“You know how to do this!”

Dick takes a look at Cass’ hopeful face, then says, “Do you want me to do it for you?”

“ Please .”

“It’s been a while since I’ve put this on on anybody. It’s not going to be perfect.”

“ I don’t care . Just put it on.”

“Okay, then. Do you have scissors?”

Cass looks at him, and scrunchs her nose as she says, “No.”

“I’ll get one. Do you want to…,” Dick searches his memory for the times he helped his mom put on false eyelashes, “...clean the glue from the eyelashes? Too much glue will make it stick less, if I’m not wrong.”

“How come too much glue makes it stick less ?”

“I think it’ll make it stiff or something. My mom always cleans the glue off before putting it on. You don’t have to, if you don’t want,” Dick says, but Cass is already picking off the dried glue from the false eyelashes.

When he returns with scissors that’s suitable enough ( not the kitchen scissors, Master Dick), Cass is already sitting down on the toilet.

“Are you still sure about this? I’m not sure I can do a good job, Cass.”

“You will not be worse than me,” Cass says, which, considering she almost poked her eye out trying to put it on, Dick is inclined to (grudgingly) agree.

“Alright. Close your eyes.”

Cass obediently closes her eyes. Dick picks up the false eyelashes from the sink and starts to measure it to Cass’ eyes.

“You did this a lot,” Cass says.

“What? Make-up?”

Cass hums. “ Stage make-up.”

“Oh. I guess, yeah, back at the circus. I didn’t have to put on false eyelashes, though.” Dick dabs on the glue to the eyelashes and starts to gently place it to Cass’ eyelids. “But everything else, yeah. Can you open your eyes?”

Cass opens her eyes, and that makes it clear that one of the ends is misplaced. Dick makes a motion for her to close her eyes again.

“Can you do the rest of my make-up too?” Cass says while Dick is pulling down the misplaced end.

Dick stops, surveys the state of Cass’ face, noting the base already on and the mostly done eye make-up, then says, “You just need some blush and lipstick, and you’re done.”

“Do it anyway.”

Dick exhales out a small laugh. “Fine, little sister. Is there anything else I can do for you, oh most talented princess?”

Cass’s response is to stick out her tongue.

“Don’t do that! You’ll make it harder for the lipstick to stay on!”

Cass opens one eye (one that’s not the one Dick is working on now, thank god) and locks eyes with Dick as she proceeds to lick her entire lip. Dick should be annoyed, but he just laughs harder.

***

Damian watches his sister dance in the exercise room. Not the practice and training space down in the Cave, but in the exercise room upstairs that Father remade to be a dance floor with floor-to-ceiling mirrors after too many incidents of pointe shoes flying in the Cave. Cassandra is truly a master of her body, and watching her do this, a very different use of her body than fighting, is mesmerizing. Damian has watched Cassandra’s dancing before, of course, the entire family went out to watch Cassandra’s recital, but that was with make-up and costume and stage-lights. This, just Cassandra with her leotard and tights in the bare room, is somehow a purer and more hypnotizing version.

It has been brought to Damian’s attention that he should do more moving sketches. Damian reviewed his drawings and concluded that that suggestion has value. He has been drawing more still-life lately, and it would be well to branch out from it. So here he is, debating whether or not to ask Cassandra to allow him to sketch her in her practice.

Damian is tempted to just start drawing, but Richard had said to ask for permission before drawing anyone after Damian had just started sketching his brother’s acrobatics practice. Before Damian can decide on anything though, Cassandra notices him and beckons him over.

“Cain,” Damian greets.

Cassandra tilts her head.

Well, now or never, Damian supposes. With her body-language reading capabilities, Cassandra might already know what Damian is there to do and is simply waiting him out. “May I sketch your dancing?”

Cassandra smiles. “Of course, little brother.” And without waiting for further clarification, she simply moves backward enough to not kick Damian with her dancing and starts where she left off. Damian, perplexed but satisfied enough not to make a fuss, sits down on the wooden floor and opens his sketchbook. He has never sketched a person dancing ballet before, and this is a welcome challenge.

As if she knows what is going on, Cassandra switches her routine, moving to a slower piece with lots of holds and balances, all without losing her graceful movements. It is infinitely easier to sketch this routine, especially with Damian never drawing ballet movements before.

Damian doesn’t say anything. He has a feeling that his sister already knows his appreciation for the change. Why be redundant and say it?

It’s a surprisingly pleasant way to spend an afternoon, especially when Cassandra grows tired of watching Damian sketch and drags him into joining her in a routine. He protests at first, only to give in eventually. And if he ends the session with laughter, well, nobody has to know.

(And if he plans on giving Cassandra a painting of her dancing sometime in the future, well, nobody has to know that either.)

#dc #cassandra cain #tim drake #jason todd #stephanie brown #dick grayson #damian wayne #fic #lian writes #batmanbingo2020

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loadedtoast · 3 years

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36/F/NZ

I have grown weary of social media as of late. The kind of social media where everyone has an opinion regardless of its impact on others, where people can type things they wouldn’t say in person and perpetuate misinformation (I am pro-vaccination). I am also growing tired of the (barely) subliminal messaging I receive about diets and body image that troll my feeds.

But I am a social creature by my very nature. Aren’t we all?

My first blog title is a nod to my ASL (age, sex and location). It’s an ‘early internet thing’.

If you are my age, you will recall (hopefully) the advent of ICQ and MSN… The patience of waiting for dial up to connect – god forbid someone else was on the landline – after school so that you could connect with friends, strangers, potential cuties… The potential cuties however were (and still are) not always what they appear to be.

But I am not here to blog about dating. Or house prices. Or global warming, avocados or other woes facing the younger generations – am I still young?

I never thought I would say this. I want to talk about having kids.

I will declare upfront that I want for nothing. I am a reasonably successful, professional woman without kids. I own my own home (or at least half of it). I live a city lifestyle, am fit, healthy and have a wonderfully loving and respectful partner (you know, one of the types of guys that speaks up and isn’t threatened by independent and successful women) - A rarity for which I cherish more than the rest of the stuff I list above. I am sure I will write about it at some point, but he is the product of a single mother doing a fucking incredible job in the most challenging of circumstances. Hats off to her!

As I was saying. I want to talk about kids.

I have never wanted them. And now we (not I. We) want to dip our toes into the pool that an increasing number of 30-somethings decide to jump into …

I am grappling with so many things. Things that are unique to us females.

I spent my teenage years being actively taught more about how to cook, clean and be a good girlfriend than I did about my own body – stuff I am learning now in retrospect (also a probable, future blog). I went onto the pill as soon as I got my period. It was a ‘precaution’ (for whom?). I learned about my vagina because I suddenly needed to put something inside it (not for pleasure) to stop my monthly bleeding from causing me more shame than I already felt – because periods are a woman’s burden to be carried in secrecy, and to be joked about by guys when the emotions get the better of us… “on the rag?” “must be that time of the month…”.

I am now 36 and just starting to become woke (as the kids say it now).

My teenage years, I imagine, were not unique. I recall one sex ed class at high school (yes, just one hour) where we learned about sex leading to STIs (previously called STDs) and pregnancy. Pregnancy was the devil and needed to be prevented at all costs (health, time and concern - which the female generally absorbed).

We skipped the bit about consent, respect and two-way intimacy – I found out about those by trial and error.

I got through to my mid-20s and the rhetoric changed. Instead of those I looked to telling me babies were bad, suddenly, babies were all the rage. I had come out of university with my two degrees, ready for that promised career, and to travel and build the life I wanted.

I felt confused.

Now, I was never the ‘maternal type’. I wonder now if there is such a thing or if its just something that we are carefully manicured into thinking that it’s what we want all along. I never wanted baby dolls and prams as play toys. I wasn’t into pink and pretend kitchens. Instead, as a kid, I was into sports, horses and motorbikes. I climbed trees and played games that used my creativity and imagination.

So, when I reached my mid-20s and people started to ask me about when I wanted to ‘settle down and have kids’ I rejected the entire notion of it. I said I didn’t want kids. In fact, I was well known amongst my peers for saying I didn’t even like kids. Which to a point is true. I don’t like ALL kids. Some kids will not grow into good adults and I place the responsibility for that on nurture not nature. This may be controversial; however I wish to believe that we are all born into this world with the potential for good.

New-born babies were thrust into my arms, because you know, I will need practice… How come boys don’t have to hold babies? I felt awkward. Like I was rejecting something that I was ‘born and bred to do’. But I didn’t want it. Not then.

When I told people I didn’t want kids, they were shocked. Kind of like the shocked face of people when I tell them I don’t drink alcohol anymore – you know, culturally unacceptable behaviour by any Kiwi’s standards. This was quickly followed by, “Oh, you will want them one day… it will all change. Trust me”.

Patronizing much?

I can now say that I felt harassed in those moments. Let’s label it.

The questions and opinions I would get were unnecessary, unprovoked and unhelpful. I honestly wondered why everyone was so invested in my interest in procreating – more so than being interested in me as a person with my own wants and needs. I guess this was part of my training for being a mum. A call out to all the mums who work tirelessly – yes, work (you have a job and it’s the hardest job of all).

I stayed the course and purchased my own home, got a great job that I worked hard for (don’t we all work extra hard, ladies!) and I prepared myself for a life with no legacy (legacy, I learned from those closest to me, is achieved though children, not a career, when you are a woman).

And then I met this guy.

He wanted kids. I kept true to my long-held comms line (like the ‘no comment’) and said I didn’t. And then he did something that I will never forget…

He said it was my choice. My choice.

He asked me why I had made that choice – his right to do after disarming me. I said, without thinking, and for the very first time… “I’m scared”. Shit, no backing out of it now…

I was scared because alongside all of the rhetoric that is forced down our faces about motherhood were the truths. The home truths. The ones I had witnessed in person. I had seen and heard, that taught me all about the value of a woman when she becomes a mum.

Now – disclaimer – I am not saying that I never seen or heard good things about being a mum. But hell, I did see and hear more average things than good things.

I saw and heard about how all the females in my immediate sphere of trust had given their careers up (in the current trajectory that they were on or entirely) when they became mums. If they didn’t choose being a mum, they were falling short of society’s expectations. If they became a mum and chose a career over full time parenthood, they were ‘outsourcing’ their most important role - as a mum.

I saw and heard my mum take the lion’s share of parenting, putting herself last. I saw and heard her play the part of mum and dad while my dad built his career – for us. The career that was really for him – let’s be true, it was his dream he was pursuing, not mine and not hers. I saw and heard her be proud of others but not of herself. I saw and heard her cry, a lot.

FYI I am very proud of my dad and I love him to bits. He is human. So is my mum. They made choices, together, in parenting us, but those choices were not made by people with equal power in the relationship and subsequently the choices did not always (actually, very rarely) benefit mum as a whole person.

I saw and heard my mum find ways to make herself feel better. She was good at buying things she did not need or want.

I saw and heard my mum largely unsupported, doing a thankless job. A job that society places no tangible value on. If you become a mum, and take time out of the workforce (i.e. you leave your job) to raise a child, you are considered unemployed (i.e. you are negatively placed on the ‘books’ aka GDP – not an investment, not a value-add activity, but a cost – you know, that the Government carries).

Funnily enough, ‘unpaid work’ of which parenting falls into, is the single largest sector of our economy but it is unpaid and therefore under-valued. Mums and dads who parent, are not seen as contributing to the nation’s economy. Where does our future workforce come from again?

And then once my last sibling left home, so did my dad. My mum was alone.

Due to her lack of ‘work history’ she could not apply for a credit card – dad could. Mum oversaw the family business finances and ensured we were looked after but did not ‘take home a wage’. Dad did. So, as usual, mum missed out and just kept on missing out. I can’t help but feel incredibly shit for mum. For all women.

These things shape my views on becoming a mother.

As do my own personal experiences.

As bad as this sounds, mum made sure I was better off. I got an education; a good career and I was raised to be independent and to ‘hold my own’. Funnily enough, I don’t recall ever ‘learning’ to hold my own. It wasn’t a session at school, or a mother-daughter discussion. It wasn’t a workshop or a coaching session at work.

Sarah Everard.

I have been following, as many women are, Sarah’s story in the news right now. Well, I correct myself – it’s not her story. It’s the story of her demise, chosen by a man she did not know or chose to know. There is an international groundswell of rage erupting from women around the right to be safe.

I saw an article written about this, and I thought, “shit, me too” (excuse the pun). A woman had put words to all of the ways in which we just know how to ‘hold our own’… the keys between the fingers when walking to the car late at night, the text to a friend “text me when you get home”, the pretending to be on a phone call, or the running without music to keep vigilant and at the ready. And the worst… Literally having an escape plan in your head as you walk down a dark street, or past a pack of guys.

This is an everyday experience of practically all women. Everywhere. I don’t know how we know it; we just do. But we shouldn’t have to.

These things are relevant and ever-present when I think about and talk about motherhood. It is ingrained in me, and has been from a young age, to be prepared for the worst, to take personal responsibility for what could happen to me, and to be prepared for things that men don’t have to worry about (it’s not their responsibility after all).

The reality is that my partner and I bring a completely different world view into a conversation about having kids together. How could it not be?

I am honest with him. I am scared. I have so much to lose – things that I have fought so hard for. On balance, I know there are gains, but one tends to focus on the things familiar and previously experienced.

I have a career built on proving myself. I once spent three months (I was an HR Manager and not a shit one) negotiating with my male boss for a salary increase to be on par with my all-male leadership team colleagues, whose roles were not as large as mine. I had to prove why I ‘deserved it’. I got it in the end. And my male colleagues successfully argued for their salary increases directly afterwards as well… sigh.

I am scared because I don’t want to lose my career. I don’t want to fall behind, and I know I will.

While I have children, my peers will continue to work, earn money, earn Kiwisaver for their retirement (and therefore increase the interest accrued), be rewarded and promoted (and increase their salary)… I will not accrue any leave. I will not get a salary increase or increase my retirement savings. I will not get promoted.

I will more than likely come back to work part time, because my partner and I will make choices and my job is the more flexible of the two. I will start earning again – but less. I will increase my Kiwisaver and get rewarded again – but at a pro-rated rate. I will probably work just as hard squeezing a full time job into fewer days for less money, while also trying to be a mum (also a 1 FTE job).

I worked it out. Furthermore, I will be reducing my in-the-hand income while on maternity leave by 82% while receiving the Government’s maximum paid maternity leave allowance (while I can).

I work extremely hard, but I am privileged. I can see why mums feel torn. I can see why there are massive impacts down the line for gender equity. And I can also see how we have missed a beat here around putting families and children first in NZ and our stats show this… Check out our OECD education stats, our wellbeing stats, our child welfare stats etc… Having working mums is not the issue. It’s the lack of choice driven by negative financial outcomes that makes being a full-time mum the poorer choice (pun intended).

I am scared because I may find it too hard. I am 36. My energy is not what it was. I hear new mums don’t get much sleep. I currently work between 50-80 hours a week. I am not sure how to do both, well. But I am unsure how to be happy, just doing one of these things.

I am scared because I may change. I will have a new focus – this could be amazing, it could also be hard. My friends are career focused. Not baby focused. Will we still have the same relationships? Will I become boring? Will we have the energy to go away with friends on weekends? Who will babysit?

I am scared because my body will change. My body is 36. I look after it. I exercise and eat well. I am not ready to look at myself in a mirror and feel mournful antipathy. Ouch. I know. Women are great at self-loathing and body-shaming ourselves. We learn it from the media. And men. And sadly, also from other women.

I don’t have many friends who don’t hate some or all of their bodies. We are told and shown what we should look like – and men are also shown what we should look like. Porn has its place, but it is not real. Unfortunately, these images require personal trainers, personal chefs, fake tans, implants, botox, fillers, makeup, hairdressers etc… Women don’t get paid as much as men. It is expensive being a woman.

Babies can mean stretch marks, fat that doesn’t go away, sags and hormone driven changes that you cannot explain. It impacts your pelvic floor.

I have heard from other women these things negatively impact on intimacy in the bedroom. How could it not if you are feeling like your body has been replaced with one you don’t know how to rock? And if we don’t rock our bodies, how will our men get off on it?

I am scared that my relationship with my partner will become secondary to the needs of our child… and our individual needs to sleep and have ‘me time’. Our relationship is strong. It is built on respect, communication and trust. I know this after years of relationships where these things were in part or fully absent.

Are helicopter mums born that way or does a switch flick when they have kids?

I want my relationship with my partner to be #1, always. Of course, it is our choosing to make it so. However, I also know what it’s like to put in effort when you’re both tired. Our relationship functions now around shifts, commutes and long work hours. We have it sorted. Add a child and less sleep into the mix and I honestly don’t know how people do it.

We are best friends who talk a lot. So, I hope that’s enough.

I am scared because I don’t want to fail. I am a high achiever. A child is something you don’t want to fuck up. I haven’t done it before and yet I have no interest in having all of the women in my life (or as I have heard, also those not in your life) tell me how to do it. Advice on ‘breast is best’ is unwelcome, Karen… I see and hear how women are given advice. Often entwined with judgement. I then also see and hear men get praised for ‘doing it alone’.

I am scared because after all of this time, if I choose the title ‘mum’ over all else, what if I cannot even become one? This is a real fear and nothing is a give-in. Wanting it, does not make it so.

I am scared because I don’t want to find myself alone at the end of it. This scares me the most. I have seen how the most important woman in my life sacrificed everything and then when it was her turn, it turned out she was the sacrifice.

...

When I write this, the Devil’s advocate voice plays out in my head. “Oh, she is a feminist”, “she is just insecure” “is she really thinking of starting a family with a partner if she thinks he will leave her?”, “she’s a but angry – old chip on the shoulder”.

I am secure in myself. I have done stints in therapy – it’s a gym membership for the soul. I am liberal, yes. And a feminist – name a sound-minded female who isn’t pissed off about the additional hurdles in her lane on the track. My partner and I are solid, or we wouldn’t be talking about having children – talking is what adults do in a healthy relationship.

I am scared. In a way, it is healthy. If I was going into it thinking “I have this nailed” then I am probably delusional, naïve or just plain arrogant.

I am writing this because it is cathartic. It is a way to express the things I feel. And to share them as I expect so many other women (and men – yes, two men can have babies together too) feel.

#mum #parenting #newmum #career #firsttimemum #startingafamily

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