#because their relationship unfolds so carefully and deliberately

[hishoukoku]

Nie Huaisang's Master Plan

I've seen a few misunderstandings regarding Nie Huaisang's role in uncovering the murder of his brother, Nie Mingjue.

I wanted to go through a brief summary his entire master plan, that he carefully thought out, chronologically, since he deserves a LOT more credit than he's given.

~~The events follow the novel story-line solely!~~

Under the cut of course, because it's quite long~!

We know and love how Nie Huaisang is first presented in his comical, innocent even scaredy facade. He is not known to put that much effort into cultivation and his studies results (especially at Cloud Recesses) are exceedingly poor.

He’s also always gladly participating in Wei Wuxian's shenanigans, indulging in drinking nights and pranks + that small fact abt him owning an entire library of pornography.

Worth mentioning, that Nie Huaisang has always shown interest in demonic cultivation when Wei Wuxian first mentioned it. Especially since he wasn't adept at cultivating himself, which proves he was already ready to use all the means/short-cuts necessary to achieve his goals.

(This is presented solely from his POV but a bit of background of each situation is needed, yet I will try not to go into too many details and keep it NHS centric as parts of his plan are unfolded, which is why other main story elements are naturally skipped)!

His plans begins after his brother Nie Mingjue's death through qi deviation.

Nie Huaisang naturally becomes the new Qinghe Nie sect leader. He is still unwilling to cultivate the saber, lest the same fate befalls him, as previous Nie sect leaders have also lost their lives through qi deviation.

When Nie Huaisang notices that his brother's corpse has gone missing, he begins his search. He is only able to track down his left arm that he can neither suppress nor control.

Thus, his first goal is to find the remaining pieces.

His plan unravels chronologically as follows. step by step:

step 1. MO XUANYU

Nie Huaisang seeks out the traumatized Mo Xuanyu and goads him to perform the sacrificial summon with the incentive of revenge against his abusive family to summon Wei Wuxian back from the dead.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

step 2. MO VILLAGE

Nie Huaisang lets Nie Mingjue's left arm loose in Mo village when the Lan juniors (Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi) arrive to help solve the issue of increased number of fierce corpses recently. Nie Mingjue's left arm ends up claiming the lives of all of Mo Xuanyu's aggressors; Mo Ziyuan, Madam Mo, her husband and A-tong, hence freeing Wei Wuxian from the debt of the sacrificial summon by fulfilling Mo Xuanyu's wish for revenge.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

step 3. THE BODY PARTS SEARCH.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s search for the other body parts begins:

The left arm is taken to the Gusu Lan sect and it directs them north-west, to Qinghe. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji encounter Nie Huaisang who tells them about the "Man-eating castle" which is revealed to be the Nie Sect’s Ancestral Hall.

Backstory: The sabers cultivated by the Qinghe Nie Clan became strong enough to have a desire to kill evil spirits on their own even of their owners' died. As this created even more bloodshed, the sixth head of the Nie Clan came up with a plan to appease them. He built a tomb for the sabres with a number of corpses that were going to turn into fierce corpses. This way, the sabres could continue to fight with evil spirits even after their owners' deaths.

-> Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji discover the legs of the corpse in the wall of this Nie Sect’s Ancestral Hall

->The left arm then points to Yueyang next, where they witness the torso of the corpse being dug up by an unknown Gravedigger (who turns out to be Su She)

->Lan Wangji finds the corpse's right arm in Yi City after splitting up with Wei Wuxian.

-> The corpse reassembles itself in a headless body in a garden in Tanzhou. After fighting the corpse and playing 'Rest' to appease it, Lan Xichen recognizes its movements as that of his sworn brother. Nie Mingjue.

4. GETTING THE JUNIORS TO YI CITY

Nie Huaisang goes to great lengths to lure the junior disciples into Yi City.

It is presumed that technically he would go that far as to put the blame on Jin Guangyao quicker, if the juniors were to die at the hands of Xue Yang, which shows how strong his resolve is.

Nie Huaisang first targets Jin Ling, in an inn located in Qinghe, by nailing a dead black cat to the door of his room and a pool of blood outside as he wakes up. This happens night after night, despite him going from inn to inn, which eventually prompts him to investigate.

At the same time, Lan Sizhui, Lan Jingyi, Ouyang Zizhen and a few other juniors had been night-hunting in Langya. They first find the head of a cat in their soup, and then the corpse of a cat in their beds. This prompts them as well to investigate, ultimately meeting up with Jin Ling.

Ultimately as they met, Nie Huaisang disguises himself as a hunter from a nearby village to point them accurately, directly towards Yi City, which was his goal for this part of the plan.

5. SISI & BICAO

Nie Huaisang frees Sisi and asks Bicao to inform Qin Su about her true relationship with her husband Jin Guangyao. Qin Su receives the letter the night before the Discussion Conference, which makes her take her own life.

6. MENG SHI’S GRAVE

(Jin Guangyao buries Nie Mingjue's head in an iron box with Meng Shi's body in Guanyin Temple.)

Thus, it's Nie Huaisang who retrieves the head and removes Meng Shi's body, placing a poisonous trap in its place.

7. THE LETTER -> second Burial Mounds siege

Nie Huiasang sends Jin Guangyao a letter warning him that he will expose all his secrets in seven days.

!This triggers the Second Siege of the Burial Mounds. Jin Guangyao uses the Stygian Tiger seal to control the corpses there and Su She seals the cultivators' spiritual power. After Wei Wuxian’s thorough analysis in front of the hundreds of cultivators present, Su She reveals himself as Jin Guangyao's accomplice.

8. LOTUS PIER

As the cultivators recover after the second siege and go to Yunmeng, at Lotus Pier, Bicao and Sisi (instructed previously by Nie Huaisang) arrive to tell their stories:

> Sisi tells how Jin Guangyao murdered his father Jin Guangshan

> and Bicao tells how Jin Guangyao's wife Qin Su was his own sister.

Hearing this, the clans begin to plot his downfall furthermore.

9. GUANYIN TEMPLE

Despite popular belief Nie Huaisang isn't captured against his will or helpless at Guanyin Temple. Everything he planned for Guanyin temple was extremely deliberate and well thought out as it's the final piece of the puzzle.

His plans were as follows:

He released Nie Mingjue's fierce corpse onto Yunping to hunt down Jin Guangyao

He was willingly "captured" by Su She to play on Jin Guangyao’s pity through seeing him defenseless and scared

He deliberately allowed Su She to cut his leg because Nie Mingjue’s fierce corpse can still sense that his brother is hurt

He also uses his leg wound at the very end, by overreacting to the pain, distracting Lan Xichen from a very wounded Jin Guangyao, so that he makes him think he attacked him from behind. This results in Lan Xinchen stabbing his dear sworn brother, ultimately leading to Jin Guangyao’s death.

Wei Wuxian pieces it all together at the end, deducting the lengths Nie Huaisang went to and the magnitude of his plan.

[captainofthetidesbreath]

On some level, especially as a screenwriter, I do find it really grating the constant "and none of it is scripted!" about how well everything unfolds with the Nein because... yes, so much is serendipitous like names, and yes, so much narrative turns on a dice roll or an in-the-moment decision. (And, honestly, even well-written scripted series aren't AS scripted as you all think they are. Few writing a season have any clue what will happen next season—and that's actually standard.) SO much of what is happening is really keen storytelling senses that allow them to instantly identify something that is narratively or thematically poignant.

But, I often feel like people attribute TOO much to just improv and so much "none of it is scripted!" feels like it's building up that the entire narrative and character arc is built on impulse and in-the-moment.

And, really, even when it is improv in the moment, they're consciously working in specific parameters, and in that way, it's INFORMED. It isn't so completely left to chance, to impulse, to reaction.

Really, a huge amount of the narrative and characters and their relationships are also carefully built with intent, consciously, deliberately working toward something specific in mind. And that's not scripted per se either, but it's not as spur of the moment and chance as people tend to think. And sometimes things radically change by luck, but equally as much, certain things are born of a purposeful and conscious development of a relationship or a point, of seeking these things out and pursuing them in a specific manner.

It takes an incredible amount of SKILL and CRAFT to take what is given, half built and half chance, and to create a coherent and beautiful narrative out of that. There is a point at which your storytelling craft becomes so good, you can instantaneously and intuitively pick up thematic and narrative threads without effort—and I believe that's so much of what the table DOES. It's sharply developed storytelling craft that allows them to pick up the threads that chance delivers, to identify what is thematically or narratively poignant in this moment.

I think the weaving of the attempt to raise Molly is the most stark examples of this, you can see them effortlessly building the narrative of the failure, Travis tying together an entire campaign's worth of thematic narrative and meaning in Fjord comforting Essek, and then how effortlessly that bridges into the Divine Intervention and how quickly they weave around THAT thematic meaning instead.

In the way that you sow certain seeds, but the weather and the conditions and what you have available day by day change how you tend to your fields in the moment you are called to respond, so did they go through this narrative. Working toward something, and responding to the conditions of the session moment by moment.

There was intent here. For just as much that was unscripted, so much is just good craft.

[shipping-receiving]

“Is there a chance you won’t be okay?”

An Analysis of Hwang Si-mok and Han Yeo-jin’s Final Scene in Stranger/Secret Forest Season 2

Alright, it’s been almost a week, I’m still crying every time I re-watch this scene, and somehow I’ve written 3,500 words about five minutes of this damn show, so here we go:

As with Stranger/Secret Forest Season 1, Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s final scene in Season 2 ended with a farewell meal, complete with soju. On a very basic level, this meal felt significant in a season where Si-mok was subject, more than ever, to interrupted meals or meals he didn’t particularly want to be present for – at least until he was able to have a drink with Yeo-jin in 2x12, and then lunch with her in 2x13.

More importantly, though, this scene is the most loaded scene we’ve ever witnessed between these two characters. That’s saying something for such a nuanced, detail-oriented show, in which two people placing their phones in a storage locker at a detention centre can possess such emotional weight, particularly when played by two actors who make very subtle and sophisticated acting choices.

I’m struck particularly by the way this scene bursts with subtext – things unsaid and unresolved – when Lee Soo-yeon could just as easily have written a neater, more light-hearted exchange that reaffirmed their connection, more along the lines of their final scene in 1x16. There are a thousand other ways their farewell could have been presented to us that would have given a greater or at least a more comfortable sense of finality, even taking into account their character development over this season. This lack of resolution is evident not just from what happened during the scene, but also when the scene happened within the episode itself. The meal occurred after Yeo-jin had been bullied by her colleagues, but before she met her new boss – at this point, it seemed to the viewer that her promotion would likely bring not the pride she experienced in S1, but more challenges and isolation.

More so than the Seo Dong-jae cliffhanger, this scene makes me think that this was written with a future Season 3 arc in mind, one in which Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s relationship will continue to evolve and deepen substantially (whether that will be ‘romantic’ remains to be seen). Considering they’re the core partnership of this series, there was a deliberate withholding of stability in their farewell, rather than an affirmation of it. I won’t go so far as to say destabilisation – because despite their separation, I think their bond is more profound than ever – but at the bare minimum an absence of certainty, when it could have been written otherwise.

Anyway, on to the breakdown:

The scene opens with Si-mok carefully folding a napkin and placing cutlery on it for Yeo-jin, a simple gesture of care that Cho Seung-woo plays with a startlingly gentle attentiveness. Immediately, it signals that there’s been a shift in Si-mok – how he’s able, at least with Yeo-jin, to do something that isn’t just polite, but also thoughtful. The director even snuck in a little clue that Si-mok is thinking of Yeo-jin as he’s doing this – Yeo-jin actually appears at the left side of the frame from the start, as the camera pans over to Si-mok: 

In this shot, Si-mok is visually separated from Yeo-jin by a pillar. This could be read on the one hand as a kind of sectioning out of his mental space – a visualisation of his thoughts of her as he prepares her cutlery – and on the other hand, as a foreshadowing of their impending separation. (I do, however, enjoy the first interpretation more. It reminds me a little bit of her sketch of the inside of his head from 1x06.)

Back to the napkin: if you look closer, Si-mok didn’t fold a napkin for himself – his spoon and chopsticks are on the table next to his bowl – so this isn’t just a matter of neatly setting the table for their meal. In a very small way, he’s anticipating her needs, just as she has done with him in much more demonstrative ways in both seasons (helping him with his headaches being the most obvious one). This isn’t something he’s necessarily actively worked on in the past two years; he’s still the person who doesn’t instinctively say ‘hello’ over the phone, or ask after someone’s kids without being reminded. Yet, it’s a capacity for care that has expanded significantly, at least where Yeo-jin is concerned.

Compare his behaviour with the equivalent scene in 1x16 – back then, he only ordered a bowl of noodles for himself and not for her. Interestingly, Yeo-jin’s comment to Si-mok during that part of the S1 scene was, “Gosh, you haven’t changed one bit,” suggesting that he was, by nature, somehow unable to be considerate to someone else. Just from the opening to the S2 scene, we see that that comment is not or no longer true, at least when it comes to the way he acts around her. In both the S1 and S2 scenes, he was the first person to arrive for their meal; in S1, the first thing he said was, “Why are you late?” and had already ordered his soju and noodles. This time, however, Yeo-jin asks him, “Why didn’t you order something first?” – implying that although she was late again, he was patiently waiting for her to arrive.

There’s also a difference in the way he responds to her appearance. Now, I personally don’t think we can frame Si-mok’s connection with and care for Yeo-jin in conventional understandings of romantic attraction (which is not to say romance isn��t possible for them canonically, I just think it will manifest differently). Nevertheless, I’d say that he responds to her haircut in a way that is probably as close to the mechanics of attraction as we could possibly expect from Si-mok – not just the shock of “oh, you cut your hair,” but lingering looks and nostalgia for when they first met; nothing at all like noticing that she’s wearing lipstick and saying, not so kindly, that it looks weird. In fact, in a direct parallel to this moment in 1x16, Yeo-jin asks him if her haircut is “weird”, and he says, “I just meant it’s different.”

(I think the way he stares at her is not wholly due to being ‘transfixed’, but also because he’s trying to figure out what such a drastic change means, and why now, and whether he has to worry. Basically, his brain is trying to compute; part of his stare is him trying to analyse her behaviour, just as part of it is him revisiting his memories of her from two years ago, and part of it might well be an attraction he doesn’t quite understand or know how to reel in. He does stare at her for an inordinately long time.)

Switching over to Yeo-jin, I really enjoy this little routine of hers when they have meals together – how she narrows down options for him to a series of questions, and even helps him decide on occasion. It never feels like she’s trying to speak for him, but rather that she knows his likes and dislikes. Her question in this scene – makgeolli or soju – is phrased like her question in 2x02, when she asks him to choose between stir-fried octopus and hot pot; when she specifically requests a lot of cabbages, she must be thinking of how he ate lots of them in 2x12. This kind of care comes naturally to Yeo-jin – we’re talking about the person who took in a murder victim’s mother in S1 – but it’s still a form of intimacy, and one that Si-mok is clearly used to as well.

Soon, though, we have our first indication that things might not be so comfortable – not in the sense that their bond has weakened, but that there are fundamental shifts occurring in both of their lives that affect this bond. Si-mok, after a lot more staring, points out that her short hair reminds him of when they first met. (He wouldn’t have needed to take that much time to come up with that simple observation, which makes me think he was trying to choose his words carefully.) With enthusiasm, Yeo-jin responds with, “I haven’t changed a bit, right?” – echoing her comment about Si-mok in 1x16.

Perhaps Yeo-jin had meant this comment sincerely in the moment, but given context, her cheerfulness feels performative. We’ve just witnessed her crying after being bullied by her colleagues, in contrast to the warmth that she enjoys with her old Yongsan team; we’ve observed her changes – a result of maturity, disillusionment, a loss of innocence – throughout the whole season. In fact, she seems to have cut her hair precisely because she feels weighed down by all that has unfolded, just as one might after a break-up or some kind of painful life event. It’s a decision that seems to say: I acknowledge that everything has changed around me, but maybe doing this will make me feel like myself again, or the ‘myself’ of two years ago.

Si-mok, of course, isn’t quite so able to agree that she hasn’t changed. Multiple times this season, he’s observed the changes in her – “You don’t draw these days?” in 2x06, “Didn’t you want to work in police administration?” in 2x08, “You weren’t the kind of person to postpone things.” in 2x12. Now, he doesn’t respond to her question, and instead looks at her in silence, smiling only ever so slightly when she shakes her head playfully (and we know that she can make him smile wider than that). Perhaps he’s even choosing to withhold any judgment of her. But this is a moment, I think, that factors into his decision to ask her that question at the end of this scene.

Next, we have confirmation that Si-mok was the one who asked Yeo-jin out for dinner, just as he had in 2x02 once he’d settled into his new posting. It isn’t clear in 1x16 if it was Yeo-jin who’d asked to meet Si-mok when she found out he was being posted to Namhae, but it’s been affirmed twice this season that he prioritises this time with her (even more so than meeting his own mother). Then, he breaks the news to her that he is leaving for Gangwon Province this weekend.

In 1x16, Yeo-jin finds out that Si-mok is leaving from the special investigation team, without Si-mok being present. At the time, they still think he’ll be sent to the US for training, and Yeo-jin is visibly disappointed. She has the same crestfallen look on her face in this scene, in front of Si-mok. She doesn’t want to be separated from him, and when she asks about his cases, it seems she’d expected him to stay for quite a while longer to see them through. Mind you, Wonju is only about 1.5 hours drive from Seoul (yes, I mapped it), but Yeo-jin still looks like she’s had the rug pulled from under her. Perhaps, in an uncertain time, she’d hoped that Si-mok would be in her life more than the few weeks he’d spent in Seoul.

Yeo-jin’s responses in both 1x16 and 2x16 are a pretty big indicator that she has feelings for Si-mok (whether she’s aware or willing to acknowledge those feelings is another matter). I suppose one could argue that her reaction is simply out of sadness at the thought of being separated from a friend, but based on certain events in S2 – for example, Choi Bit questioning Yeo-jin about her relationship with Si-mok, and Yeo-jin deflecting – I think the viewer is at the very least meant to question whether their bond is truly ‘platonic’. This isn’t the type of show to include superfluous details just to tease their viewers, and in any case, Si-mok and Yeo-jin’s connection has only deepened through the course of this season despite being on opposing sides of the council. It feels like the emotional stakes are much higher this time than back in S1.

As Yeo-jin is absorbing this news from Si-mok, there are a couple of little details here that feel significant to me, but could be nothing: first, the way Si-mok half-holds out his hand as Yeo-jin is pouring her soju, just as he’d held out his hand when she was pouring makgeolli in 2x13. Second, how she pours out a cup of soju for herself first, but not for Si-mok. In any other situation, it might seem impolite – after all, Si-mok is the one who’d chosen the drink – but here it seems that she’s pouring a drink to steady or busy herself more than anything, and she doesn’t drink from it till after their toast.

Following this, Yeo-jin confides in Si-mok that “I never thought the council would end like this. [...] Will the higher-ups be replaced with more honest people while I’m catching bad men out there?” When he replies with, “Why are you talking as if those two are the same?”, it’s yet another of his probing questions, questions she never seems to have an answer to. The Yeo-jin of old would never have assumed that all the higher-ups are dishonest – she has always seen the good in people – but she feels betrayed by Choi Bit, the one person she sincerely respected. Here, she changes the topic rather than opening up, reverting to her most comfortable mode of showing care for someone else by asking Si-mok why he looks so tired. It’s a guardedness that we’re not used to seeing from Yeo-jin; when Si-mok met with Choi Bit at the start of the episode, he describes Yeo-jin as someone who “opens up easily”, even if she doesn’t “blindly trust or respect just about anybody”.

While Yeo-jin is evasive, Si-mok is more willing to be vulnerable in comparison. His openness isn’t surprising, given that Si-mok has shared more about his life and thoughts with her than with anyone else, but it is still heartwarming to see. Instead of brushing off Yeo-jin’s comment, he tells her about his dream of the prosecutors from the Western Office. For anyone else, this might not seem like a significant conversation topic, but for someone who hardly ever dreams (which Si-mok mentioned in S1), it feels like he’s sharing something special with her. This dream, and his factual recounting of it, seems to be a means for his brain to process the traumatic events of two years ago.

Before Si-mok tells Yeo-jin about his dream, there’s a quick insertion here – a lament about seeing your boss in your dreams – that suggests that she is still troubled about Choi Bit, more than she’s letting on. Again, Si-mok doesn’t push her to elaborate, though I think he’s been absorbing all the things that seem off with Yeo-jin since she arrived. Yeo-jin proceeds to analyse his dream in her head, but doesn’t verbalise her interpretation (that Yoon Se-won might be considering suicide, since he went off in the same direction as two characters who have both passed). As she’s deep in thought, Si-mok tilts his head questioningly at her; she says that he probably won’t have time to go anywhere else this weekend, implying that she was thinking of bringing him with her to visit Yoon.

Knowing that Si-mok won’t be able to come with her, however, leaves Yeo-jin resigned. As she announces, “All right, then,” I wonder if this is the moment that she’s choosing to steel herself. The two people she treasures and respects most in her life (Si-mok and Choi Bit) are disappearing from it, and she will have to learn to move forward without them.

Now, we come to their toast. In the corresponding scene in S1, their toast is bittersweet, but has a sense of resolution; upbeat piano music plays in the background as Yeo-jin says, “Goodbye, I won’t be able to see you off,” while Si-mok echoes that with, “Good luck in your new position. Sorry I can’t attend the ceremony.” In S2, the music is quieter, and much more sombre – I’ve been describing it in my head as ‘breathy sad wooooo music’ – even as Yeo-jin laughs and says, a little helplessly: “It feels like we keep repeating this.”

Si-mok, on his part, doesn’t even echo her laugh with anything more than the barest smile. Instead, he says, with a deep sincerity: “Take care, Senior Inspector Han.” As I mentioned earlier, there are many ways that they could have written or played this scene to convey even a little more resolution – choosing different music, or having Si-mok smile along with Yeo-jin, or even giving Yeo-jin a bit more notice of his departure so that she can prepare a gift (as if to say, she doesn’t draw as much these days, but she would for his sake). But the viewer is made to feel all of their reluctance, even sadness at this separation, even if those feelings are hidden beneath pleasantries. “Well, I guess I’ll be okay,” Yeo-jin says, as if there’s a possibility that she won’t be – that this is something she has to recover from in the future.

Si-mok considers her words, her phrasing, her demeanour, tilts his head at her again and says: “Is there a chance you won’t be okay?”

This, above all other lines, shows how much Si-mok has grown in the past couple of years because of Yeo-jin’s influence. Whereas he started S1 cold, guarded, and isolated from the rest of his colleagues, he has arrived at a point where he has cultivated enough of an emotional sensitivity to ask her this question – to show her care, just as she has shown care to him and other people around her. I’d even venture to say that Si-mok feels, himself, that there’s a chance he won’t be as okay with their separation as he might have been two years ago. In 2x05, during the conversation with Seo Dong-jae outside the prison, Dong-jae asks Si-mok: “You don’t feel a tad bit sad even if you’re sent far away, do you?” Si-mok answers, “No.” That doesn’t feel so definitive anymore. There isn’t anything either Si-mok or Yeo-jin can do, given that they both prioritise their careers and understand that these careers follow a certain trajectory, but parting feels a little bit harder this time.

Yeo-jin answers Si-mok’s question as reassuringly as she can, with an adorable smile and shake of the head; she lets out an “ah” after she downs her soju, as if to reorient herself. Yet, her cheerfulness in the rest of the scene – her excitement at the food, her over-enthusiastic chewing – rings empty as the sombre music continues to play in the background. For perhaps the first time in the entire series, there is something about Yeo-jin that seems feigned. Strangely, it is Si-mok’s blank expression that represents the more authentic emotion in this scene – communicating the very resignation that Yeo-jin must be feeling inside, beneath a facade that might read as comical in any other context.

“Is there a chance you won’t be okay?” is, in fact, the last thing that Si-mok says in this whole scene, despite quite a few more lines of dialogue from Yeo-jin. The way he looks at her for the rest of the scene, though, is charged with meaning. It seems to say: ‘I don’t really believe that you’re okay, but I’m going to give you space because I can tell you don’t really want to talk right now.’ It’s not as if Yeo-jin hasn’t confided in him before – their phone call in 1x15 was especially intimate – so it’s not that Si-mok is incapable of listening to her. Still, he respects her choice to deflect, and continues to observe her closely while ignoring the pajeon, even leaning forward right at the end of the scene. This very overt concentration on her is something we’ve never really seen from Si-mok before; even in the rooftop scene in 2x06, which is probably the most loaded scene they share after this one, they’re standing beside each other and rarely make eye contact. Here, his focus on Yeo-jin is palpable.

As much as this scene felt heartbreaking to me (thanks breathy sad wooooo music), it actually left me with a lot of optimism for the development of their relationship in the future. Lee Soo-yeon has said that she has enough material for five seasons of the show, and while I’m not so sure we’ll get as many seasons as that, it feels like she’s pushed Si-mok and Yeo-jin out of their comfortable friendship – planting the question, “is there a chance we won’t be okay?” I wonder if we’ll see something quite different in the third season (which is apparently in discussion!), which surely won’t see them on opposing sides again.

I’ve been burned by enough ships that can potentially be read as ‘platonic’ to know that I shouldn’t hope for any overt romance, but Si-mok is such a unique character and has such a unique connection with Yeo-jin that I’m hopeful that their relationship could be deepened with nuance, even if it doesn’t become romantic in ‘recognisable’ ways. (I have other thoughts on his asexuality/aromanticism that I won’t get into here.) It’s precisely because their connection is built on mutual trust, respect, and understanding that it remains so compelling, and I think this scene promises growth, and some resolution, whenever we see them next.

[joonsgalaxy]

true care |07.5 (m)

→ pairing: bodyguard!Jungkook x female reader

→ genre: fake dating au, fluff/romance, angst, smut

→ word count: 2.3 k

•  summary: your (endearingly) shy bodyguard—hired by your father—would do anything for you. even though you roll your eyes at his persistence and pretend there’s no need for him to follow you to every and any place you go, there might be many more hazards in your life than you let on. and you might end up needing him in more ways than you—or your father—would ever think.

! warnings: mentions of toxic past relationship throughout the series; mentions of guns, alcohol

↠ chapter 7.5: you’re my painkiller

chapter list

a/n: it’s been a whileee. i know. this chapter is kind of an introduction to the 8th one. or basically a part of it. i just really really wanted to post something. i’m rusty. hope it’s not too bad. love, kyu

Jeongguk had run it in his mind a million times before. He hadn’t been counting exactly, but he was almost certain the number was rather accurate. He had explored all of the possible scenarios, all of the hazardous circumstances that could occur in various surroundings. That was what he ought to carry out as a bodyguard. And that was how his brain worked anyways.

He’d think a lot, calculating his every step in all those imaginary situations. Perhaps, he’d overthink a lot, but to be fair it only seemed to be an appropriate trait of his personality for this kind of a job. Fact is, you can never particularly know in what kind of a mess you’d end up. He was obliged to be prepared for anything. He was being paid for it. Well, not only for that, apparently. Jeongguk also had to pretend to be your boyfriend, at least around your friends.

But this night wasn’t about that, not anymore...

He was embarrassed. Deeply embarrassed. He had been before—when you saw the neighbourhood he was living in for the first time—and he was now—when it was the second time of you being here. This time, though, it was eminently different. This time you were inside the house. Inside his humble apartment. Sure, he’d move to another place soon (thanks to the rewarding job), but for now he couldn’t offer you much, except the view of the old playground for kids through the window and a cup of coffee that was probably at least three times cheaper than you were used to having. You refused the offer of coffee, though. And Jeongguk had no idea if you were being honest, when you said it would only magnify your anxiety. Perhaps everything that Jeongguk owned wasn’t good enough for you. It only made sense.

Is there anything he can help you with? ‘Yeah,’ you said. ‘I’d like to change—these clothes stink.’

He'd never think that you, by your own will, would express the eagerness to come to his place. Would borrow his clothes for the night without a smidgen of hesitation. This was rather... peculiar. Unexpected. Not in a bad way. Certainly not. This small apartment, where he spent his tolerable and not so tolerable days in, was the place you'd try and find some solace at. At least for the night. And that meant something, right? Had to.

'I don't want to go home,' without any effort, it seemed, of hiding the anguish within you, you let Jeongguk know your immediate thought once the incident was over. You had already given your statements to the authorities, and Jeongguk could see how drained you were from all that had been occurring that evening. 'Can we go to yours?'

He was taken aback by the request. Please, you added, when he found himself hesitating.

He couldn't say no to your soft voice and jaded eyes. Perhaps he should've.

And yet, here you were. There was no going back now.

As you were sitting there in his own shirt and sweatpants, he thanked God everything ended well that night. He wasn't sure how he'd be feeling now if anything had gone wrong. If anything bad had happened to you. There shouldn't be any kind of sentiment involved in this job, sure, but hell, Jeongguk was certain he'd lose his damned mind if anyone hurt you in any way. And not only because it would mean he failed at his responsibility to protect you, but also because... he was smitten. Kind of pathetic, if you think about it. Ridiculous, really, for he'd only met you a few weeks back.

The sigh you let out whipped him back to reality.

'I'm fine... you're fine... Mr. Ri is completely fine,' you said; the words were laced with certain kind of confusion, as if it wasn’t true. 'And still, there's this unpleasant feeling in me. I can't get rid of it.'

Jeongguk was sitting across the room from you. And even though his studio apartment was tiny and there wasn't much space between you two, his feet were itching to move even closer to you. He wished he knew how exactly he could comfort you.

'It's... disgusting. And all over me.'

It was so quiet. Unusually quiet in the room. Not even the annoying buzz of mowing the lawn could be heard. Nor the roars of cars pulling into the parking lot. It was as if the world around you needed to take a break too.

The walls in the building were basically paper thin. Jeongguk could usually hear some sort of sound at any given time of the day. The clatter of dishes in someone’s sink; the vexed parent reprimanding their child; the friction between a couple coming to life in a form of a loud quarrel. And sometimes it would comfort him in a way. Remind him of how diverse the world really is. Of how many different stories are unfolding around him. Just how many various things people have to deal with, all of them just as important. Quite humbling.

Even though it was silent at the moment, he didn't miss the sounds. The only thing he was certain he would miss when you leave his apartment, was your voice.

'Honestly? I'm glad I'm not home right now. I would most definitely lose my mind. My dad...' Anxiously, your fingers toyed with the hair tie on your wrist. Pulling, releasing, pulling, releasing. 'He would be asking me a million questions. Or he would just straight up avoid me.' Over and over, your skin was slapped with the result of your distress. Jeongguk wondered if you even felt it. Felt the sting of the stretchy thing making contact with your soft skin. Perhaps it was numb.

It was something you'd do a lot when being fretful—repeat certain movements absentmindedly. He'd seen it during the party; the night you looked breath-taking, the night you forced him to sit at the same table as you, even though it was not planned by the event organisers. He would still look back on it from time to time. Still was wondering why you did that exactly.

'You know, I think I've mentioned this before, but I've gone through something similar in the past. The reason behind my disagreement on my bodyguard carrying a gun with him...'  

Jeongguk couldn't remain still on the chair while you were in such an emotional turmoil. He shot up from the seat and crossed the room, gingerly plopping down on the bed right beside you. And though he deliberately left some space between you two, his hand dared to land onto yours; he carefully set it aside from your wrist that could already be seen irritated by the hair tie.

You glanced at him, and the look in your eyes was rather soft, grateful perhaps. Even so, Jeongguk drew his hand back, placing it in his lap. He would sooner slam his head against the door than make you feel uneasy by his close proximity. You already seemed so fragile.  

'We don't have to talk about it if you're not ready,' he assured you, when you stayed silent for a few another seconds.

'During your service,' you said after a while, 'did you see lots of violence?'

'There wasn't much during training. Though, I went on a couple missions that could be classified as pretty serious, I guess.'

'Were you scared?'

He thought about it for a moment, let the silence hang in the air akin to a fog above fields in the mornings. He figured there was no point in hiding anything. 'Yeah. There were moments I was terrified.'

Gently, in a shy manner you ran a hand across his duvet on the bed. 'How did you deal with it?'

For him, this felt deeply intimate. Almost inappropriate. You were finding out about his personal stuff in his own apartment. Your skin was touching the fabric he would later tuck himself into. And the necessity to ignore the closeness for the sake of both of you was crushing him.

'I kept reminding myself of what I was there for. I tried to turn deaf ear to the emotional side of myself. To use the rational one.'

'Did it work?'

'Sometimes.' Jeongguk shrugged. 'There were moments I almost lost it. There were moments I watched someone else losing it. Those missions... They were not for the faint hearted. But no,' seeing the worried look on your face, he quickly added, 'it wasn't all guns and death, don't get me wrong. Mostly waiting, watching, hiding, holding one's breath. Well, that one because of all the smoking other guys did.'

He saw a faint smile flicker upon your lips. That made his heart warm.  

The boy could tell there were a bunch of messy, hurtful things happening to you in your seemingly ideal life. And he could also tell that a handful noxious thoughts were tormenting that mysterious mind of yours. He had a feeling you were your worst enemy, as cliché as it might sound.

You were a private person, didn't let just anyone in, so he could only see the tip of the iceberg.

'You didn't pick up smoking then?'

'Nah.' Jeongguk should his head. 'Not because it's gross,' he felt the need to add, 'or that I think I'm above all that. Quite the opposite, to be frank with you. I know if I start smoking, I may never stop.'

'Oh?' You looked a little surprised. 'Your will, to me, seems to be made of titan.'

A corner of Jeongguk's lips twitched in an ironical smile.

'In a way, it certainly is. But I'm only human. I've seen the strongest men get hooked up on that shit, like finishing the whole pack of smokes in two hours and then losing their mind over the fact that there's none left. The withdrawal and the stress that came with it made them vulnerable, they lost their vigilance. You need to stay sharp at all times on this kind of job. I need to stay sharp on this kind of job.' He vaguely gestured toward you. 'So yeah, maybe I have the will not to pick up smoking, even if it could help me feel nice for a moment, but my body isn't addiction-proof, and that's when it gets tricky.'

There was a gentle nod from your side of the bed. 'It's good to be able to admit that to yourself. Not everyone can do that, even if it doesn't seem that complicated.'

'That's true.'

Jeongguk saw you getting lost in thought for a second. Then you chuckled in a derisive way; you were mocking yourself. The sound made the boy's heart ache a little. 'All that talk about you being in the military...' you began, 'and you're working for me now. Like who honestly cares what I've been through, when there are people such as you, responsible for mine and others' safety? You risk everything. For others. My God.' A sigh escaped your lungs. Jeongguk didn't know what to say. Who cared about what you've been dealing with? He did. But he wouldn't tell you that. Not now. This was already getting too personal. 'Most of the time I feel lost, and I feel this sadness just kind of sitting there on my shoulders, and... do I even have the right to feel this way? My life is pretty much perfect.'

'Nobody's life is perfect,' Jeongguk reminded you, adding, 'You have every right to feel. No matter what sort of feeling comes over you. No matter when or where. It's only natural. You’re only human, too.’

‘Yeah. I just feel like...’ You hesitated. ‘Like I don’t possess control over anything in my life anymore.’

Jeongguk exhaled a long breath. Decided to try and lighten the mood up. ‘You know you’ve still got control over me.’ He was your father’s employee after all.

You snorted with laughter. A success.

‘Just give me any order and I’ll do it.’

You looked at him almost challengingly. ‘Any order, huh?’

Jeongguk nodded, innocently.

It didn’t take much time for his mind to go back to the night of pure indecency between you two. It hit him like a train. All the orders uttered by your soft, slightly tipsy, yet remarkably alluring voice. All the risky and obscene actions he did there right beside you in the back seat of your car.

He felt his cheeks bloom in red.

Were you thinking about the same things as him right now?

The playful smile on your face morphed into one that didn’t seem as obvious, but Jeongguk thought it certainly looked just a dash more wicked. ‘Yeah?’

Even if his heart was starting to pound in his ears, and even if he knew there definitely was a possibility he would appear as a total idiot, he answered, ‘Yeah.’

Everything felt still in the moment that came after. What now? Was he a bad person for secretly wishing you would ask him to do something filthy again? For wishing he could feel that same adrenaline rush once again? Was he a bad employee?

There was a shift in the air. He watched your smile falter. And then your eyes, as captivating as ever, followed their way from Jeongguk’s orbs to his lips.

He thought his heart would jump right out of his throat.

‘Then kiss me.’

[moribundanchor]

The Pelle/Dani Receipts, Post Six: Dani’s Birthday Plot

[tents fingers]

Now, Pelle finally has Dani all to himself. Yessssss. And he wastes exactly NO TIME passing to her an unfolded piece of paper he’s been keeping tucked away, with a nose scrunch (I’m sorry, it’s adorable) and a soft, surprise “Hey. Happy birthday.” Yes, Dani, someone remembered. Actually, someone spent a good deal of time carefully drawing a beautifully realized pencil portrait of you, complete with a flower crown and runes. Someone has been thinking about you kind of a lot, girlfriend of someone’s friend. How do you think he drew that? From memory? Do you think he has pictures of you? Anyway, Dani is thrilled and surprised and just so happy, which is also kind of telling. Real talk: he has effectively cornered her and privately given her a fairly personal gift, which he will encourage her to keep secret (more on that in a second). If she weren’t receptive, it could be creepy or at least awkward. If she weren’t into it, can you imagine how weird the rest of the festival could be? And this is the first day. But you are into it, aren’t you, Dani?

“It’s just something I do for birthdays,” Pelle smiles, and then he hesitates, as though the thought has just occurred to him. “Maybe it’s not appropriate?” Okay, Pelle, sweetie, forgiving the fact that were you actually concerned about whether it was appropriate to give her this, you probably would have mentioned it to Christian and/or not taken scrupulous care to give it to her on the downlow, why wouldn’t it be appropriate to give this gift? Because it could be construed as romantic, of course. Because it is pretty darn romantic. This is how I see you, Dani. But in asking Dani whether it’s appropriate, master manipulator Pelle is using the rhetorical device of apophasis, suggesting something by not suggesting it, basically, “Here’s a romantic thing, Dani. Do you mind? It’s not romantic.” SURE, PELLE. And then he suggests that they keep it “just between us.” Okay, Pelle, so if it’s an appropriate gift, offered purely in the spirit of friendship, no big, you’d do it for Ingemar or Josh, why keep it secret? His rhetorical moves here swing from denial to affirmation, throwing out mixed signals like a motherfucker to both assure Dani of his feelings and continue to provide plausible deniability. 

But then, Dani gamely accepts his terms, agreeing to keep the portrait between them...like that's no big deal. Consider for a moment what is implicit there. Christian can’t know. Why can’t Christian know? Is it because Christian is unusually jealous? There’s no evidence of that; he just left his girl alone with Pelle. It’s because this is the first (that we know of) exchange in an emotional affair, and while Pelle has given her plenty of plausible deniability, Dani isn’t even tentative about it. Yes, this is our secret. Remember how happy she was talking to Pelle on the couch in New York.

Then Dani, smiling as genuinely as she only does for Pelle, confides in him that Christian forgot anyway. So, not only does she alleviate Pelle of any suggestion of inappropriateness--which is less accepting that it isn’t a romantic gift and more that she tacitly accepts the gift with all its implications--she directly compares Pelle remembering her birthday to Christian forgetting it. This moment gets glossed over in favor of Pelle’s much more overt seduction of Dani, but please notice: Dani is comfortable with admitting something that personal about her relationship with Christian to Pelle. If he were just an acquaintance, if he were closer to Christian than Dani, why would she tell him that? It would be embarrassing to her and awkward for him as Christian’s buddy. Exact words: “Christian forgot anyway so this [portrait] is amazing.” Christian forgot, you remembered, 1 point to Team Hårga. Not to mention telegraphing your relationship woes to a man who just gave you a romantic gift is a considerably less subtle signal than Pelle’s apophasis. We’re not suggesting that Dani is unambiguously, consciously, deliberately lighting her signal fire for Pelle here...but witness. The signal fire done got lit. 

One more important bit about this scene. As we will point out over and over, Dani mirrors Pelle and the other Hårgans a lot, but also notice that when Dani shares that Christian forgot, Pelle perfectly mirrors Dani’s stunned/upset “oh” when he failed to condole her on the couch in New York. Like her “oh,” Pelle’s clunks loudly to the floor between them, interrupting their whole ambiguously flirty groove, but, for Dani/Christian severance purposes, it’s important he does this. Constitutionally empathetic as he is, Pelle could easily buffer the awkwardness of the moment, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t do anything to help Dani rationalize Christian forgetting. He simply reflects back to her discomfort and shock that Christian could be so callous of her feelings, leaving Dani to inadequately flail for excuses. In the end, she can’t excuse him, and so she re-ups her appreciation for Pelle’s gift once again, but she will leave that scene not only knowing Pelle cares, but having been forced to acknowledge, if only to herself, that Christian apparently doesn’t. Nice work, Mr. Pelle.

But Pelle is not done. Not our soft sweet cultboy. Skipping ahead to Pelle showing everyone the Youth House, he takes Christian aside at his first opportunity. We aren’t privy to a lot of his conversation, as the camera follows Dani to the wall of portraits of the May Queens, but we do catch the very end, up close and out of focus, as Dani also seems to key in on their talking covertly. Christian is aghast, as Pelle is telling him that he has forgotten Dani’s birthday. He asks Pelle if Dani said anything. And this is when Pelle tells one of his very few direct lies in all of Midsommar, assuring Christian that Dani didn’t mention it. This is important. Ari Aster blurs a lot of what Pelle knows when, but he wants us to know something unambiguously here, a rarity for this film: this isn’t a kindness gone awry. Pelle is setting Christian up. [grabs megaphone] PELLE IS SETTING CHRISTIAN UP. When Dani interrupts them with a question, Pelle nods and gestures significantly toward the bed before joining her, showing Christian something we can’t see.

As Pelle explains the May Queen dance competition, Christian gathers himself and then he asks Dani if she can join him outside, hiding something behind his back. Cue off-key happy birthday serenade and Christian trying to light a candle with a bad lighter. The cake, candle, and lighter could only have been provided by Pelle. That is presumably what he’s pointing out to Christian on the bed before he moves over to Dani by the May Queen photographs. It’s orchestrated to be obvious to Dani that Pelle is the real person behind the gesture, because Christian would have had no opportunity to arrange it. And of course, she saw them talking right before. After Pelle’s thoughtfulness, it will be obvious to her, and Pelle’s cover-story of arranging this to save Christian’s forgetful hide just makes it all the more apparent that he forgot. So Pelle might look like he tried to be a good friend to Christian, but he’s clearly presenting himself as a much better friend, maybe more, to Dani. 

We also headcanon that Pelle made the lighter intentionally bad by emptying most of the fluid, thus making Christian’s insincere gesture all the shittier. The fact that he has to flounder with the bad lighter just underlines that he hasn’t prepared at all. Meanwhile, in the background, several Hårgan women sway and soothe a baby, foreshadowing the way Dani will be comforted when Christian betrays her in the Maja impregnating ritual.

For more, click on The Pelle/Dani Receipts Masterpost

[hotchley]

so why can’t you see (you belong with... each other?)

This is probably my favourite out of all the scenarios planned.

It’s also so incredibly stupid and even more self-indulgent than the rest put together, but you know what, I laughed and that’s the main thing. But seriously. This is a really silly one. 

It involves a bucket of water and a white shirt. That’s all I’m saying.

@whoreforthebauteam I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did, and once again, I am so sorry that this is so late, but it’s only going to get slower from here because this chapter was already half-written when I published the other one....

Also I kid you not, I am uploading this with my sister in the room it is so stressful I cannot have her seeing my laptop screen

previously: part one, part two

read on ao3!

Chapter Three: Attempt Two- Emily Prentiss

The thing about Emily Prentiss was that she got on Aaron Hotchner's nerves at least six times an hour. That number went up when they were on cases because she would deliberately act up just to piss off the officers. And as much as he wanted to laugh or applaud her for her antics, he couldn't, because someone had to be responsible.

But that did not make him the mom of the team. It didn't. It just made him the slightly more responsible member that remembered to carry painkillers and chocolates for everyone, as well as plasters because there was no telling what would happen to them- and okay maybe he was the mom.

The point was, as much as Emily Prentiss annoyed him, he also knew she would die for him. Literally. That was not an exaggeration, because okay sure, she hadn't really died that time with Ian Doyle, but it had driven the point home. And he would die for her.

Which was why he was listening to her talk about something. He honestly wasn't even sure what was going on in the conversation anymore, but she seemed to be content with him not actually listening, so he assumed it was something she just needed to get off her chest.

Emily was actually not talking about anything important. She was just getting him distracted enough that he wouldn't notice when she picked up the bucket that she'd left by her desk when everyone else left for lunch.

Morgan had looked at her strangely when she said she was going to stay back and get ahead on her paperwork, but then he just shrugged and headed out with Reid, JJ and Garcia. Hotch left his office a minute later, and she grabbed the bucket Anderson had left in the supply closet, filled it with water and hid it under her table. As Rossi was in a meeting, he couldn't ask any questions.

When Hotch came back from the bathroom, she went and asked him to walk with her. Because she was his best friend- something neither of them would ever willingly admit- he couldn't say no and after circling the building, she was now able to finally enact her plan.

He hadn't even noticed that she was holding a bucket full of water.

Then he turned back to face her, and she looked between him and her bucket with an awkward grin on her face.

"So, JJ took off her blazer this morning and I accidentally stained it with my pen but I don't want her to be sad or cold so I thought I would just wash it now. Whilst nobody but you is here because I may need instructions on how to hand wash things," she said quietly.

"You have got to be kidding me," he said.

She shook her head.

He sighed. "Right. I think the best plan of action is-"

Before he could finish speaking, she saw Rossi holding the door for Strauss. It was now or never.

She threw the bucket of water over his head, completely wetting his hair and shirt. His shirt that happened to be white because she had told him to wear the white shirt and blue tie the night before when JJ had been with Will and Henry and they had both been lonely.

"Emily!" he shouted. "What was- why did you do that?"

She covered her mouth to hide her smirk. "I'm so sorry. That wasn't- I just lost my grip on the handle. I genuinely did not mean for that to happen. Are you okay?"

He crossed his arms over his chest, already well aware of the fact that his shirt was now practically see-through and clinging to his body in an almost uncomfortable way. But he wasn't an idiot. She had done that on purpose. Why, he did not know. But she had.

"I'm really cold," he whined. He was watching her carefully, trying to find any clues as to what her plan was. However, the bullpen was still empty and there were no cameras dotted around, so a prank seemed out of the question.

"Okay, well, what I'm going to do is…" she trailed off, appreciating how his shirt seemed to cling in all the right places. Objectively, he was attractive. And besides, nobody else was there, so she could stare as long as she wanted. It wasn't anything she hadn't seen before. And the water had caused his hair to fall onto his forehead, much like it had in the years before she'd joined the team.

"Emily!" he said, beginning to shiver. He would have gone up to his office and changed his shirt, but if he wanted to do that, he needed her to move out of the way.

Emily pretended she hadn't heard him, choosing instead to look past him and at Rossi and Strauss. Her plan was for Rossi to see Hotch dripping wet and shivering, but still incredibly attractive and with his hair making him seem younger and much more approachable. It would shock him into realising that he was attracted to him, so when he inevitably went up to his office to see if he was okay, he would also ask him out on the date.

Strauss met her eyes, jaw wide open. Emily's own eyes widened slightly as she panicked. The relationship between Erin and Aaron had started to improve after Haley's death, but things between her and the rest of the team still felt tense at times. She raised an eyebrow and Emily opened her mouth. To say what, she had no idea.

"What?" she replied, far too late.

Erin and Dave were not coming any closer, but she could hear the team in the elevator, all shouting at each other. Aaron looked at her, panic in her eyes, and she realised she had thirty seconds to make her decision. She either waited for her plan to unfold the way she wanted it to and risked everyone else seeing, or she let it fail.

When she looked over, Erin was dragging Dave away from the bullpen and towards a random office than nobody ever used. Emily sighed, and heard the team's voices begin to come closer. It didn't look like her plan was going to work, but there was no harm in waiting for just one more moment. If Strauss would just turn around, it would work.

Strauss did not turn around and there was only so long she could pretend to be frozen in shock and fear.

She stepped out of the way, and the door to Hotch's office closed just as the team got to her. They looked at her crestfallen face. Then at the bucket still by her feet. Then at the water emerging from it. And then JJ looked up at Hotch's office. The blinds were closed.

"What did you do?" she asked.

Emily turned to her with a pout, and she rolled her eyes before pressing a kiss to her girlfriends' cheek. Emily smiled after that.

"You have to promise to not laugh at me," she said.

Derek immediately started laughing. "Emmy, you can't say things like that and expect me to not."

Spencer hit him lightly. "Emily, I don't promise to not laugh, but please just tell us what happened."

She sighed. "I tried. I really did, but my timing was off and it failed."

"Wait, what did you try?" JJ asked.

"I poured a bucket of water over Hotch," she mumbled.

JJ started laughing. Derek's jaw dropped and Reid just stared at her, a faint blush on his cheeks.

"Emily Prentiss, he is wearing a white shirt," Derek whispered, looking behind him and seeing that Hotch's office door was still closed and that the blinds were still shut.

"I know that. Rossi was meant to see him, realise just how hot he is and think: wow, I really want to kiss his dumb face, but I don't know what happeened! I think Strauss grabbed his arm and pulled him somewhere else. The point is, he hasn't seen him and the moment is ruined."

JJ patted her arm in a fake gesture of comfort. "I guess you're not getting a coffee either. And-" she paused as she noticed the pen on her blazer.

"And what?" Emily asked, pouting.

"I'm never letting you borrow my work clothes ever again," she said.

Emily smirked. "That's what you always say."

Derek shook his head at their antics, but smiled to himself as he took his seat. He wasn't against the idea of setting them up, he just had no idea how he would do it. He knew Hotch better than most people, and he knew that the man deserved all the love in the world. It was just about getting him into a situation where that could happen.

He started to plot to himself, but disguised it by completing the paperwork he'd nicked off Hotch's desk in the morning. Hotch would realise, but Strauss wouldn't. He was remarkably good at forging his Unit Chief's handwriting. Maybe he would teach Jack the next time he saw him…

Hotch had changed into the dark blue shirt he kept in his go-bag whilst all this was happening, but he wasn't ready to open the blinds. Or unlock the door. He needed a moment to try and understand why Emily had poured a bucket of water over him.

She could claim it was an accident till she was blue in the face, but he wasn't an idiot. She hadn't lost her grip on the bucket, she had deliberately lifted it so it would go over him. He just didn't understand why. She'd walked in when he was showering to ask about the remote enough times to know what he looked like without a shirt- he gave up locking the door after she kicked it in- and was happy with JJ.

She had nothing to gain from his shirt going see-through.

With a deep sigh, he opened the blinds. The team pretended to be extremely invested in their work, but he knew they all knew what had happened. When he looked at Derek's desk, he noticed that some of his paperwork was on there. Derek met his eyes, daring him to say something.

He opened the office door, but bit his tongue and didn't shout down at him.

Erin decided enough time had passed for Aaron to get himself together. She had no idea what the BAU A-Team were up to, but she also knew that Aaron would be incredibly embarrassed if Dave saw him soaked. So she dragged him down an empty corridor, ignoring his surprise and praying nobody saw the two of them.

That time, as fun as it had been, had passed. She just hoped he didn't get the wrong idea, and that Aaron had a spare shirt. The two of them were meant to have a meeting with one of the senior chiefs.

"So, is there a reason you're not letting me leave a storage cupboard?" Dave asked, pulling her from her thoughts.

"You can go now," she said.

He frowned, but didn't push as to why they had been there in the first place. She waited before following after him, smiling at Agent Anderson, who looked flustered when he realised just where her and Dave had been.

When she saw Dave walking into Aaron's office, she went the other way to get her office, not wanting to interrupt their moment. Besides, from what she could see, Aaron's shirt was now dark blue, which meant everything was fine.

"You changed," Dave said, as he entered Aaron's office. He'd actually been dropping in to gossip to him about Erin dragging him along, but that immediately went out the window when he realised Aaron wasn't wearing the white shirt.

"Yep," Aaron said, not even looking up from his paperwork.

Dave didn't mean to push. He really, truly did not. But something in him felt the need to turn and see what the kids in the bullpen were doing. And when he did, he knew they had to be involved. There was no other explanation.

"So what happened?"

Aaron looked up at him, glare slightly softer than normal but still present. "Emily Prentiss poured a bucket of water over me."

Dave blinked, then smiled. He couldn't laugh. He wouldn't laugh.

"It is not funny! We're lucky we just got back yesterday, or else I wouldn't have had a spare shirt. And I have a meeting with Strauss later, imagine how bad it would have been," he whined. He didn't mean to, but Dave knew him from his earliest days at the BAU. Sometimes he just slipped into old habits.

"Aaron, I'm sure she didn't mean to pour an entire bucket of water over you," he soothed.

Aaron's glare hardened. "Yes, she did. Why, is beyond me. But she did! I mean honestly, the one time I step out of my comfort zone and don't wear a blazer, she does this."

Dave raised an eyebrow. "Well, whatever her reason, you look handsome now as well," he said, before leaving.

If he had stayed, he would've seen the colour rise to Aaron's cheeks as he ducked his head, unsure what he was meant to say in response to the compliment. He only looked up when he was sure Dave was gone.

Handsome.

It was a nice thing to hear. He could almost imagine it being whispered as he turned up at his door with a bouquet of flowers, ready to take him to dinner and- he needed to stop. Him and Dave were just friends.

They wouldn't work. They couldn't work.

Right? Right. It just would never happen/

Dave was unaware of Aaron's inner turmoil, but Penelope Garcia, who had finally been informed of Emily's failed plan, was plotting her own matchmaking scene. She wasn't cheating by involving her girlfriend in it.

She was just pushing them together a little more forcefully than Emily had. JJ had set things in motion, Emily had caused the feelings to start stirring, and she would add the last few drops of fuel that would make everything explode in one big declaration of romance.

It would be perfect.

And she would be able to lord it over everyone else until the end of time.

[elle-imagines]

Hello! I just want to say first that I adore your blog. I hardly ever find someone who also loves to do deep character analysis and I love it 🥺 Can I request headcanons of Sasuke with a delicate yet formidable s/o? Maybe add in nsfw if it's not too much trouble? Thank you!

Thank you so much for your kind words, it means a lot to know you like analysis, too! I hope to continue meet your expectations in the future now that I’m back. I love my Sasuke, so I got carried away. It’s a bit long! 

~1500 words

NSFW below

SFW

When the two of you first met, he looked over you. He thought you were too gentle and meek in the way you carefully wrapped your kunai or leapt softly from branch to branch. He disregarded the warmth of your voice even when others were rough with you. Before you two got to know each other, he never appreciated fragility. His life never shown him it, so anything of that nature creates a feeling in him that brings discomfort. Or more specifically irritation, curiosity, and a hint of longing for gentleness he wish he experienced.

It began when you offered to clean his weapons. It was a task he could neglect at times, his mind on strategy and ruthless ambition. He agreed, and something urged him to keep you company. He wrote it off as wanting to watch your handiwork, not the pull towards your tame energy that pacified him. Your presence created serenity, a gentle silence as you worked clove oil into his blades while he watched a few birds perch comfortably on an uprooted tree. He thought he’d feel satiated, but peace, serenity, and gentility are scarce resources in his world. He sought this normalcy you provided for him. He was just Sasuke to you, and beyond his unrelenting pursuance of this path he took, he found moments where he only wanted to be a man for once. Just Sasuke. Just with you.

Your meetings continued over time, a respite from violence and anguish, in a secluded area overlooking a creek. You begin to bring meals when you notice him eating less. You brought tomatoes, molded onigiri, and cabbage, while Sasuke met you with a few fish he caught earlier. Every time he ate, he felt gratitude at eating home-grown vegetables he used to indugle in as a child. This sense of nostalgia and normalcy you brung urged him to begin a romantic relationship with you.

He began to know you, no longer overlooking you. He observed the way you grip things like a shinobi would, the lowering of your eyelids when someone was being abrasive. It’s almost as if he could hear you calculating, analyzing others and predicting their next move, your feet subtly shifting in a defensive stance under your dress. When you accompanied him to fight, his heart throbbed faster at the sight of your prowess. Your adaptability. Your cunningness. Your formidability. What was most threatening, if not eerie, was your ultimate control of every part of you, mentally and physically. Every word, every swing of the blade, every small nuance you did was with purpose. You knew just the amount of agony, just the amount of threat to let lay on your tongue, just the right wordplay to use to create doubt in an enemy. Your formidability came from your deliberation. Your formidability came from perseverance before those perceived to be more powerful than you.

Sasuke knows you.

Sasuke knows your hands. Your hands, coordinated and fastidious in needlework and mending, warm and gentle in consoling an upset friend and caressing him into willing distraction. Those hands, as he observed, have also disarmed men more powerful than most with a complex hold. Blades fly from your hands with a flicker and a bend of air. A surge of chakra halves trees and shatters bone. His lips lift warmly at the feel of your calluses. He knows your hands. He knows the ruin and tenderness they could bring.

Sasuke knows your voice. He hears the radiance and softness you use with him and your friends. Even the lack of you speaking, holding your tongue when necessary, is a tactician’s move. He knows your voice can betray nothing, whether detailing a report to your superiors or debating for better support and protection for genin students. The fluidity of your voice can bring a council member down a notch, incite hesitancy in an S-Rank criminal, and soothe a child’s tears. This is the voice that hides fear under a mask of penetrating perceptivity and intellectual prowess. You sound as gentle as the ocean, but can morph into a persistent wave that will erode the strongest boulders into weak gravel.

Sasuke knows your walk. You’re gentle on your feet like he is, barely disturbing the ground beneath you even when you’re tired. He’s grown fond of seeing you reach on the tips of your toes for something, or land quietly on a branch. He has seen that walk change into one that makes a shinobi falter their fighting stance. No, there is not the sound of foreboding thumps on the ground at your approach. But, the swiftness of your arrival and departure, taking the consciousness of enemies before you is a bit more frightening because of something called underestimation.

Sasuke knows your eyes. The gentle squint because of your raised cheeks. The lashes he feels against his skin at night. Their openness and curiosity as they look into his eyes. Those eyes show acceptance and happiness towards him, and he is aware of the appreciation you furtively show to his physique. Those eyes pick up on the strain behind his own, giving unsaid comfort for thoughts he cannot express. He also knows the extent to which it absorbs surroundings. Holstered weapons on passersby, the rigidness of someone’s shoulders, the exchange of illicit materials near your preferred market. You remain quiet, meeting eyes with knowing that one more person knows something secretive. 

Your delicacy mirrors his roughness, as the sun’s warmth soothes the moon’s frost. Your hands, as they rest on his back, mend and unfold muscles he didn’t know he tensed. In contrast, the directness of his voice as he corrects your stance while training you and the strength behind his sparring shows you his sincerity in helping you. As you both dress each other’s wounds, your touch is as remedying as your chakra, bringing him back to memories of his mother nursing scraped knees busted lips. His touch is heated and solid, firm but attentive, and brings you comfort in knowing you are protected willingly by a man who knows you don’t need it.

NSFW

With delicacy comes attentiveness and gentle handling, everything Sasuke needs when it comes to personal intimacy. Although having seen sexual activities at red light districts and dubious markets he encountered as a fugitive, he still has a rudimentary idea of sex. Based on what he saw, the depravity of it in these areas (and spotting a few paragraphs from his former sensei’s infamous book), it affirmed that it did not interest him more than it did most of his life. Even before he left the village, he had a dim interest in sexual topics thrown around before class, and dismissed the passing of lewd magazines during Warring States History class. 

He finds people to be beautiful in the same way you find nature beautiful, not really ogling at breasts or legs. He appreciates your beauty in a whole way rather than specific parts of you.

Ideas of becoming intimate with you surfaced after a while, but he was hesitant to bring it up. It’s more likely you brought it up first and you both discussed it (though awkwardly).

He is nonchalant to the idea of sex, but he does have a steady libido which he equates to scratching an itch and releasing stress. Sex for him would be to give and receive sensual affection, and learn about each other in a different aspect.

Sasuke likes to have a routine when doing many things, including sex. He learns that you like his fingers to comb through your scalp, his staring at you from between your legs before beginning to taste you, how he holds your face in his hands. Predictability in this setting is best for him, so you make sure he is comfortable every step.

I feel that he is much more responsive to your hands massaging on his erogenous zones than directly on his sex. Trailing your fingers softly on his thighs, whisper against the folds of his ear, or kissing the insides of his wrist makes him shiver. Caressing him and embracing him closely gives him the most pleasure than outright handjobs.

Sasuke appreciates your patience with him. A lot. The lack of expectations you hold on him and the calmness you exude gives him peace.

Both of you don’t mind chasing non-penetrative release. Oral sex, slow grinding on his hips, and massaging is perfect for him. Mutual masturbation is an intimate way for him to watch you pleasure yourself and learn what you like from your movements.

Your gentility and skill at perceiving his small tics furthers your dynamic in the bedroom. You work slowly, watch him clench his jaw when you mead the muscles of his thighs. When he accepts your offer for oral pleasure, your deliberate slowness is what sends him over the edge. You look at him knowingly, calculating how to bring the most pleasure and understanding what he likes. You know the sensitivity he has when you cup him gently, or the sharp breath he takes when you hum while sucking repeatedly.

Sasuke enjoys you holding him after you two have sex, the air smelling like heat and salty sweat. You embrace him gently, affirming to him that you will always have him and care for him. As he holds you, you feel his endearment radiating off of him. Without words shared, you know he loves you, as you love him.

[andinewton]

So, here’s that oneshot I mentioned last night.  It’s just tooth-rotting fluff, plain and simple, and I hope you enjoy it!  I’m tempted to carry this one on, and in fact, I could link all my Victor onshots into one big story, as that’s what they are in my head!  Anyways, enjoy!

Beautifully proofread/checked over by my gorgeous eldest daughter, @mrslancemcclain.  And just to confirm what she checked; the trademark is deliberate!

MLQC - Telling Victor

You were nervous.  Actually, scratch that, you weren’t nervous, you were HECKING nervous.  You had been having meetings with Victor for years.  You had had dinner with Victor hundreds of times.  You had breakfast with him whenever he was in the country…mostly because you all but lived at his house with him now, but that was beside the point.  Today, you were nervous, and there was no getting around it.

You were a couple™.  Everyone knew the legendary CEO of LFG had been dating a producer for well over a year, Victor proudly showed you off at events for the press and business associates alike, smiling smugly that you were his and his alone.  Except, now you weren’t.  And you had to tell him.

His flight was due in at midday and you had messaged him, carefully avoiding the cliched and easily misinterpreted; we need to talk.  So you told him you wanted to see him as soon as you could.  You were sure he looked at the message and muttered dummy before replying, but you did get a message back, saying to come to his office at three that afternoon.  Which was why at 2.50pm you found yourself staring up at the building with the biggest butterflies you had ever felt doing laps in your stomach.

‘Come on, don’t make me feel any more sick than I already do.’  You grumbled to yourself before setting your shoulders and walking in the front door.

You had dressed up, you hated to admit it but you wanted Victor to realise you had made an effort for him.  Your makeup was as perfect as you could get it, subtle pastel to match the white dress with pink floral print you wore.  The skirt floated around your knees, your heels clicking on the marble floor as you made your way to the elevator, waving a greeting at the receptionist as you always did.

You fiddled with the strap of your bag as you watched the numbers go up on the display.  Why did the boss always have to be on the top floor?  It just made going all that way up more nerve-wracking, as though you weren’t in a state already.  You smiled at people who got in and out on your ride up but it failed to meet your eyes.  You wondered if they noticed, logically knowing they probably had more important things to worry about than if their boss’ girlfriend smiled properly at them, but you still felt bad for not putting all your effort into it.

Finally the elevator sounded its arrival and you walked towards Goldman, who glanced up from his work to give you a warm smile.  ‘Hi, MC, long time no see.’

‘It has been over a week.’  You replied, finally able to smile properly at Goldman, if only for the moment.  ‘How have you been?’

‘Productive.’  He leant forward conspiratorially and you laughed.  It was an in joke for the pair of you, that Victor being away made you more productive as though he wasn’t breathing down your neck, and it had carried on even now that you were in a relationship.  You appreciated that things hadn’t changed.

‘Same.’  You replied.  ‘Can I go straight in?’

‘Sure, I know he’s looking forward to seeing you, even if his face doesn’t show it.  Can I get you anything to drink?’

You shook your head.  ‘I’m good.  Thanks though.’

‘Let me know if you change your mind.’  He pressed the intercom and was greeted with a terse; yes? From Victor.  ‘MC is here.’

‘Then send her in.’

Goldman waved his hand towards the office door with a flourish and you mouthed a quick thank you to him before heading in.

‘There she is.’  Victor’s voice was warm when he greeted you but he didn’t look up, finishing whatever work was on his desk.

‘Here I am.’  You shrugged, even though he wasn’t looking at you.

‘Sit.’  He waved his fountain pen at the seat in front of him without a glance your way and you did as he asked with a small sigh.

You weren’t sure if you were glad you had a reprieve of a few minutes or unhappy you couldn’t just get it over with.  Your mind was working overtime with potential outcomes of this conversation, most of them not good, so you decided the latter was more accurate.  You bounced your leg out of pure tension, fingers now rubbing the soft material of your dress between them as your bag was on the floor.

‘I missed you.’  Victor said before putting the lid on his pen and finally looking at you.  ‘Are you alright?’  His smile quickly morphed into a concerned frown as he took in the expression on your face.

‘Me?  I’m fine.  How are you?  How was your flight?’  You garbled out a quick reply which did nothing to alleviate the worry in his eyes, more added suspicion to them.

‘Okay, spill it.  What’s bothering you?’

‘I’m not bothered.’  You laughed nervously.

‘Riiiiiight.’  He got up and came around the desk, sitting on the edge in front of you with one leg on the floor, arms folded.  ‘I have nowhere else to be.  You can either tell me and we move on or we wait all afternoon for you to figure out whatever it is that isn’t bothering you.’

You huffed out a breath then sat up straight.  You knew Victor didn’t appreciate beating around the bush but you had to say a couple of things first.  ‘I missed you too, by the way.’  You replied to his earlier statement.  ‘And you know that I love you, right?’

‘Of course.’  His brows knitted further at the strange way you were going about expressing your affection.  ‘Just like I love you.’

‘Okay, good, good.’  You nodded a couple of times.  ‘Because I really like this.  Like us.’

‘Do you think I forgot that fact on a three day business trip?  Trust me, I know you’re happy.  You’re easy to read…most of the time.’

‘You can’t read me right now?’  You narrowed your eyes, wondering just what he was seeing as he hadn’t figured it out.  At least, you didn’t think he had.

‘I can tell something is bugging you, something you’re struggling to tell me.  You don’t look guilty, like you do when you rush your report but claim to have put in weeks of work.  Or when you eat the last pudding and won’t admit it.’  You gave a small laugh as just how well he knew you sank in.  ‘Which means it’s something else, I just can’t put my finger on what it is.’

‘I don’t think you’ll guess it.’  You smiled apologetically.

‘I might.’

‘I’m pregnant.’

Victor’s face froze for a moment, unblinking and unmoving until it seemed he suddenly reanimated, unfolding his arms before immediately folding them again.  ‘You’re right, I wouldn’t have guessed that.’

You swallowed hard.  ‘You’re not mad, are you?  Because I didn’t do this on purpose, you know I’m on the pill, and I didn’t miss any, or take any medication to mess with them, but they’re only like ninety-nine percent accurate and I guess I fell into that one percent because it’s happened, and why aren’t you saying anything?’

Victor took in a long slow breath, releasing most of it before speaking.  ‘Because you’re not giving me a chance to get a word in edgeways.’  He got off the desk and crouched beside you, taking both of your hands in his.  ‘I’m not mad.  It’s going to take some getting used to, but definitely not mad.’

‘You’re sure?’  You asked quietly, your voice filled with emotions.

‘I’m sure.’  He nodded before kissing the back of each of your hands in turn.  ‘How far along are you?’

‘By the math the doctor did, ten weeks.  It’s still early, but my pants are already getting tight.’

‘I’ll buy you more pants.’  He laughed, loving how you focused on the strangest things.  ‘But that doesn’t give us too much time.’  Getting to his feet he went back around the desk and opened a drawer.

‘Much time for what?’  You looked at him in confusion as he came back towards you.

‘To organise a wedding.’  He opened the small box he had hidden in his palm and showed you a beautiful sapphire ring surrounded in diamonds and set in a platinum band.  ‘The business trip was just an excuse to go collect this from the jeweller I commissioned this from.’

‘Wait, what?’  Your confusion grew, as did your eyes, your brain trying to process just what was happening.  ‘What?!’

‘Idiot.’  He chuckled.  ‘Does this clear things up?  I want to marry you, and wanted to ask you to be my wife before you told me what may just be the best news I’ve ever had.  So, what do you say?  Am I putting this ring on your finger or did I just waste a few days of my time as well as a few weeks of the artisan’s?’

‘You suck at proposing.’  You sputtered as your ever fluctuating hormones drew tears to your eyes.

Victor rolled his eyes but obligingly got down on one knee and took your hand in his.  ‘MC, you are an absolute dummy, but so am I for waiting so long to do this.  Would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’

Your bottom lip trembled and your voice came out high pitched.  ‘Well, now you made me cry!’

‘That’s not a yes.’  He reminded you impatiently.

‘Yes!’

The fact you had managed to utter the word in a tone that you would assume only dogs could hear didn’t stop him from sliding the ring onto your finger, fitting perfectly by some miracle, and he shifted to both knees before pulling you by the hips into his lap and kissing you firmly.

‘Come on, don’t cry.  You’ll confuse the kiddo.’  He stroked your back reassuringly as you laugh-cried in response.

‘I don’t think the baby knows what’s going on, because I sure as hell don’t.’

‘You never know what’s going on.’  He wiped at the tears on your cheeks softly.  ‘How about we go celebrate somewhere nice?’

You narrowed your eyes at him, suspicious of the way he said it.  ‘Where did you have in mind?’

‘Our place.’  He grinned as he effortlessly stood with you in his arms.  ‘Because as of right now you live there too.’  He pressed the button on the intercom before sitting in his chair with you on his lap.

‘Yes, sir?’  You heard Goldman say as Victor curved his arms fully around you and cuddled you in close.

‘Find a removals company who are available asap.’

‘A removals company, sir?’  Goldman’s confusion was evident.

‘That’s right.  She said yes.’

‘That’s wonderful news, sir, I’ll…’

Victor cut him off and reached up, cupping your face in his palm and stroking your cheek with his thumb.  ‘Are you ready to go home, my bride to be?’

You sighed contentedly, leaning into his hand, eyes closed.  ‘I am, but I have just one question.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Where are we going to put all the little knickknacks you’ve bought me from around the world?  I’m pretty sure they’ll look out of place at Li Manor.’

‘We can put them in the baby’s room.’  He leant forward and stole another kiss.  ‘As a tribute to our love story.’

[lovebugluck]

Sorry But I Fell in Love Tonight

AO3 

She promised herself she wouldn't do this.  She swore she wouldn't notice every time he smiled, or run his fingers through his hair. She swore she wouldn't find herself giddy over patrol, eager to see him and be greeted with a "Hello M'lady".  She swore that she wouldn't hold back a blush or the butterflies in her stomach every time he addressed her with one of her many nicknames.

Above all, she promised herself she wouldn't fall in love with him. But, the thing was, she had been falling in love with him long before she had realized. Sometimes, certain promises were made to be broken, she supposed.

Sitting on their rooftop, one that had become the designated place for late night talks and rounds of would you rather. Ladybug sat, and she thought.  Everything seemed to be changing so quickly. Ladybug had always prided herself for her ability to understand things, and how she was feeling. What her next move would be. More and more, she had no idea what was happening. And it terrified her.  She had been trying to get over Adrien. She always would care about him, more than anything, but she also valued his friendship. At least then, she could form full sentences and could spend time with him without fumbling over her every move.

She had, however, been spending more time with Chat. The more time they spent together, the more they spoke, Ladybug couldn't seem to get enough of being around him.

She couldn't.

The words stayed firm in the back of her mind. If Hawkmoth noticed how close the two were, then he wouldn't hesitate to use it against them. He already had tried. She had to keep their relationship strictly professional. It was too risky otherwise.

Ladybug let out an audible sign, remembering the note she had been tightly clutching in her hand. She had thought for weeks about it. While Ladybug was content with herself on her quick thinking and position as a good student, she felt as though this quite possibly was the most stupid and rash thing she had ever done.

Ever since taking on the role of the guardian, Tikki made sure she was well aware the rules of identities were now in her hands. She was hesitant to make any next moves. Marinette knew it would make her life so much easier knowing who Chat truly was, especially if they knew each other personally. It was also safer, in case one of them was unable to cover each other. Once they knew both sides of each other, they would become even closer, as Tikki insisted. After many weeks of deliberating, her thoughts came to a close. With her stomach in knots, and her mind far from ease, she began writing a letter to Chat. She figured instead of starting a casual conversation with, "Oh hey Chat, I'm in love with you by the way! Also my real name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng. How are you doing?" she could write her feelings and then share them.

The Things I've Always Wanted to Say, But Never Knew How

From Ladybug

Hi. So, I'm not entirely sure how to say all of this, but I needed to. I guess I'll just jump right in. This is a list of things I've been dying to tell you, and I've finally decided it was time.

1. You are the best partner I've ever had. Now, it's not like I've ever had another pun-loving cat superhero as a best friend before, but you're definitely the best I could have gotten.

2. I like the puns. Really. Timing? Not so much. But they make me laugh, and without you, this job would be so dreadful and boring and repetitive that I wouldn't be able to handle it.

3. I appreciate all of your hard work, and even the little things never go unnoticed in my book. The way I know I can count on you, and that you'll always have my back is something that makes me able to be Ladybug. Without you, I'd probably be no where.

4. You're so much more worthy than you think. I know some days, you seem to feel like you don't bring anything to the table. Let me tell you how wrong you are. You are truly special, Chat. I'm serious.

5. You have a good sense of humor. That's all I'll say. I don't want you getting full of yourself now. :)

6. You have really pretty eyes. Tikki's giggling as I write this, but hey, I said I wouldn't hold back.

7. I'm in love with you. Surprise? In all honesty, I've been so scared to tell you in fear of what may come. The only thing I've got to lose is you, and I'm going to take the risk. I love you, Chat. I love your bravery, your humor, your kindness, your personality, every single little thing about you from the face you make when I laugh at your pun of the day, to your wild spirit.

8. My name is Marinette Dupain-Cheng. I know I've always said we had to keep our identities a secret, but now that I'm the guardian of the Miracle Box, it's up to me. I would love to know who you are too, whenever you're ready.

I know that this is probably a lot to take in. I didn't know how to come out and say all of it, so I figured this would be the next best thing.

Love,

Ladybug/Marinette

Taking in her surroundings, she scanned the skyline, but could make out her leather-clad partner. She noticed, however, that she was shaking slightly.

She shouldn't have been scared. She faced monsters of all sorts each and every day. She also spent each and every one of those same days with her partner, who she knew would never hurt her intentionally. She was extremely nervous though. With an akuma, it was a strategy game that could be easily won with a bit of thinking. This situation was completely different. These were her true emotions, ones that she tried her very best to mask as Ladybug. After a few more moments of contemplating forgetting the whole thing and going home, she heard him land behind her. It was now or never.

"Hey bugaboo, how are you doing on this fine- wait, what's wrong?" He stopped abruptly, noticing her tense state.

"Good, er, I mean, hi... um. This is for you." She jerked the note towards him as a feeling of nauseousness washed over her. He gave her a quizzical look, and took the letter from her.

The next few moments were absolutely agonizing. She watched as he read through, eyes shining as he displayed a small smile. His eyes finally reached the bottom of the note - she held her breathe - and watched as his eyes widened and brimmed slightly with tears.

She wouldn't meet his eyes. She felt so vulnerable, so open, in a way she had never felt before. While this was Chat, her Chaton, this was all so new to her.

He skimmed through the note again, almost as to make sure it was really there, before tucking it at his side and bolting towards the edge of the rooftop.

"Where.. where are you going?" Ladybug called. He was already making his way off the building.

"To get something! I'll.. I'll be right back!" With that, he was gone.

Ladybug stood very, very still. She was numb. She was also an idiot. Chat probably freaked out and bolted because she came off too strong. Or he didn't want to tell her he didn't love her anymore, he had moved on. Or he secretly knew her in his personal life and despised her, and he never wanted to see her again. Or-

He thoughts were interrupted by the sound of his second landing, and he rushed towards her. Shoving a note himself towards her, he breathlessly said, "I never thought I'd give you this... but I guess now's the time."

She carefully unfolded the note. While reading through it, she felt the tears rushing down her cheek. She couldn't believe it. When she finally reached the end and was greeted by an incredibly familiar name, she let out a sob.

Chat hesitated, then pulled her into his arms. "I hope you aren't disappointed.. I just, I don't know." He stuttered, unsure what to say. Ladybug threw her arms around him. "How am I this lucky?" She muttered.

"What?"

She pulled away, finally meeting his eye. "Chat... oh my god. You were the other person I was in love with. God I'm so stupid.. so so stupid. I fell for the same person twice. I rejected you... for yourself! Oh god.." She trailed off.

He let out a slight laugh. "I guess we're both idiots then."

"Is it really you?"

"In the flesh." He answered.

They found their way into each other's arms, dropping their transformations. After a few moments, Adrien spoke. "Would it be okay if I kissed you? I don't want to rush anything, I don't really know what to think right now, all I know is you're amazing and-"

Marinette closed the space in between them, and they melted into one another. While they were unsure of the future, they both knew one thing.

Ladybug and Chat Noir had found each other. So had Marinette and Adrien.

It was perfect.

[inhanf-archived]

Truth or Dare: An Epilogue

Square Filled: S14 @cmbingo

Warnings: Canon Divergence, mentions of the Jeid fiasco.

Length: 1465 words

AO3

Taking a last look at your make up in the mirror you decided to take the stairs up to the balcony overlooking the banquet hall where the reception was in full swing. Your nerves were making themselves known, a flock of butterflies were occupying your abdomen and you were more aware of your breathing than usual. Cresting the stairs you found a pillar beside the balcony and looked around it cautiously, not wanting to draw the attention of any of the guests below. The hall was beautifully decorated and would not have been out of place in an Italian town, probably the intention the happy couple had in mind when picking the venue. It was a small wedding, family and close friends and that had made you nervous when your boyfriend of a little over a year asked you to join him there. You had both deliberately kept his colleagues in the dark about your relationship, preferring to let it unfold without the gaze of other profilers potentially colouring it. You had worked with his boss, Emily Prentiss, in London and knew that she would make the connection upon seeing you again after all these years.

A smile crept across your painted lips thinking about the effort it had taken to keep Emily at bay over the past year. You had felt guilty not telling her you were in DC at first but rationalized it to her when you had run into each other at a coffee shop one Sunday by telling her that you were still under contract to Interpol and very limited in who you could interact with. This had been true until four weeks ago when a final court ruling has concluded your ongoing case and set you free of the five-year contract that had started with Emily recruiting you. You hadn't even known that Emily was no longer your boss until emerging from nearly four years of undercover work and had learnt from Spencer that she was now unit chief of the BAU. You were thrilled for her, knowing that she had never been truly happy in London, even if it had been a necessary move for her. Unit Chief obviously suited Emily as you saw her cross the floor with a laugh lighting her face, making her look a decade younger than she was. You followed her movement, content to get this opportunity to observe unobtrusively, as she approached your partner who was leaning against the bar below the balcony. Spencer was obviously intense conversation with a blond woman who you assumed must be JJ. Your heart sank a little, though you knew he had intended to speak to her tonight about the confession during the case in LA.

The butterflies abruptly died and your heart rose several inches into your throat as you watched them, Emily giving them a message and JJ putting her hand to Spencer's chest to stop him following her. Your breath caught momentarily, jealousy and a fierce protective instinct flaring in your chest in the exact spot where she had touched him. You knew about the confession. Spencer had been distant when he got back and it had taken a lot for him to open up and tell you. You didn't like to recall the previous evening, it was the first time you had felt like you might really lose him. You had weathered a lot together in the last year, you both had baggage and his job was intense and often triggering for him. But you had established ground rules together to deal with it, and they had never failed you. The conversation had been tense, there were a lot of tears from both of you as he tried to work out what his best friend had meant, why she was being weird with him now and how he felt about her and the confession. In the end, he concluded that he would need to ask JJ directly if she meant it as it had come across. He needed to know, not because he felt the same for her but because this was his most important relationship, more so than his with you or even with his mother. You were fine with this, you had known what JJ meant to Spencer all along and it never caused you any consternation. Until now.

As you watched Spencer step back you could see him watching JJ carefully. A kind smile that didn't quite reach his eyes tugged at your heartstrings and you knew he had not gotten a simple answer. Was there a simple answer to be gotten in this situation. JJ nodded and turned to walk back to the group who were gathered around to watch the cake being cut but your eyes remained on Spencer. You could feel his heart breaking as if your own was cracking apart in your chest and felt a tear threatening to break free and spoil your make up. Looking up to the ceiling you took a few steadying breaths and took your phone from the clutch you had been holding very tightly without realising. You typed a quick text and sent it, your eyes returning to watch Spencer as you awaited a reply.

Down in the hall, Spencer was standing at the back of the group when his phone buzzed quietly in the pocket inside his jacket. Slipping it out he saw a text from his girlfriend on the lock screen that read 'SW balcony. Ok to join? x'. Looking over his left shoulder he searched for a moment before spotting her standing almost concealed behind a pillar on the upper level, smiling gently at him. His breath hitched as he took her in. A full head shorter than he was he could tell from her posture that she had worn heels to make up the difference tonight. Her glossy brown curls were pinned up with an ornate clip on one side and hung loosely around her face and shoulders. A Kelly green chiffon dress hugged her to the waist before falling to just below her knees and she held a small bag in which she was stowing her own phone. He smiled broadly and gave a quick jerk of the head to let her know it was ok to join the party. The fear that had been sitting on his chest in the run-up to confronting JJ and its accompanying confusion and frustration at her lack of clarification lifted a little as he watched his girlfriend disappear down the stairs. Knowing that she would soon be by his side, that he would no longer be alone in this situation that was causing him so much anguish and pain was like a soothing balm on a wound. He felt the familiar awe he had for her well up in his chest, one he had tried and failed to put into words for her on numerous occasions. She made things better by being beside him and he was deeply grateful that she hadn't left him last night when words had failed him again in his attempt to communicate the impossibly complex situation with JJ. He hadn't felt romantic feelings for Jennifer in years, their relationship was familial and he loved her but in the way a brother loved a sister. Her confession had sent all those old feelings coursing through him and the ensuing battle between his old affections and the years of closeness had spilt out into his current relationship. The thought of leaving his partner had never even crossed his mind and when he had looked into her green eyes, bright with tears and saw the fear and sorrow there it had scared him to think that she had thought he might leave. Though only a year old his relationship with her was the most stable and grounding thing in his life. He had asked her to move in after only nine months together and felt immeasurable joy in sharing his apartment with her, seeing her sleeping face every morning he was home and coming back from a case to find her asleep on the couch, having tried to wait up for him. She made him happy in ways he never believed he could be again. Not even a profession of love from his closest friend could change his mind about her. This was the woman he wanted to spend his life with, who made him want a gathering like this of their own, who very recently had spurred him to buy and conceal a ring in his bureau. He did not know when he would ask, but he would. And as she entered through the grand doors into the hall and smiled at him he knew exactly what her answer would be when that day came.

[shannaraisles]

Comfort & Ploy - Chapter 3

Carver Hawke needs a girlfriend for the festive season. Filipa Trevelyan needs an excuse not to spend Satinalia with her parents. Best friends pretending to be lovers … what could possibly go wrong?

[Read on AO3]

*****

Waking from a good night's sleep after a long day was always a good feeling. Especially this morning, Filipa lazily reflected as she slowly surfaced to consciousness. Usually her apartment was frozen, so she was huddled tight beneath layers of blankets, but this morning, she was toasty warm.

Almost too warm, actually. She yawned, tilting her head as the precursor to rolling onto her back, only to realize that she couldn't actually move. That the firm pillow beneath her head was not only warm, but radiating heat, rising and falling in a slow, comforting rhythm. That the wrap of the blanket around her shoulders was not actually a blanket at all, but a firm, well muscled arm, holding her close to an equally firm, well muscled chest.

Sweet Maker, she'd cuddled up to Carver in the night. And he'd let her! He was cuddling her back and ... Andraste's knickerweasels ... her leg was thrown right over his hips, her body pressed so close to his she might as well have been inside his pajamas with him.

She should have been absolutely mortified. She should have rolled away as quickly and gently as possible. A friend wouldn't let their friend wake up in this kind of compromising position, especially when she knew he would blush as red as the fire engines he drove on a daily basis back home. But ... there was a but. There had never been a but before. Not only that; she was deliberately not thinking about what that but might be.

She hazarded a wary tilt of her head to look up at his sleeping face. He was such a handsome man, she reflected. She'd always known it. You couldn't be friends with Carver Hawke without being very aware that women had a tendency to make fools of themselves trying to get his attention. He'd never given them more than the time of day, though. Filipa had initially assumed he wasn't interested in women, but had learned later in their friendship that he was actually terrible at talking to women he fancied. If he could get laid without having to speak at all, it would be so much better for all concerned.

Filipa stopped that thought abruptly, aware that there was a sudden sharp pang in her chest at even the possibility of Carver finding anyone attractive enough to overcome his inability to talk like a human being to a pretty girl. She frowned, absently focusing on the beat of his heart beneath the palm of her hand, marveling at how steady both it and his breathing were, even when she was wrapped around him so completely. She'd be lying if she said she had never found him attractive - Maker knew she had wasted plenty of daydreams on him during the first months they had known one another - but it had never come to anything. That was why she had felt safe in agreeing to help him fool his brother this Satinalia.

She sighed softly, rolling her eyes at herself. Great, just great. You promised it wasn't going to get weird, and now it's weird. Good going, Pip.

Well, she could at least do the decent thing and untangle herself before he woke up. With careful, gentle movements, she drew her leg back from its rest over his body, delicately loosening the grip of his arm about her shoulders. But as she moved to roll away, he rolled with her, big strong arms wrapping close about her body once again to pull her back close to his chest, fitting the long line of his body to hers with a sleepy mumble.

Filipa swallowed hard, trying not to shiver at the sensation of his breath against the back of her neck, or the warm, liquid warmth that was gathering, unbidden, deep in her belly. Shit. There was no getting out of this particular embrace, not without waking him up. She was just going to have to forge through the awkwardness for his sake. It wasn't his fault she had suddenly realized for the second time that he was pretty much everything she could ever wish for in a man.

He nestled closer into her neck, sleeping lips brushing her skin, and she felt the blush begin to paint her body, starting from somewhere around her naval and rushing upward to cast her face in shades of delighted, ashamed rose. Worse, the arm he had wrapped from beneath her neck bent further around her, one large hand closing with unconscious possession about her t-shirt-clad breast.  

"Mmm ..."

Abruptly, she silenced that unconscious moan with a sharp intake of breath, shocked at herself and, if she was honest, more than a little turned on by Carver's sleeping affection. She never would have guessed he was a hugger in his sleep, but then, they had never shared a bed before. This was new territory for both of them.

She was not going to take advantage of him, though. Steeling herself, Filipa gently slid her hand between his palm and her breast, carefully unfolding his arm until it lay flatter against the bed. The other, she just as gently eased from about her waist, slowly inching forward until she could clamber out of the bed without waking him. Breathing a sigh of relief, she looked back at her sleeping companion, and watched as he groped for her for a moment before gathering her pillow into his arms and burying his face into it. It was such an endearing sight that, for a moment, she forgot to breathe normally, eventually forced to inhale or pass out.

"Get yourself together, Pip," she muttered harshly, turning away so that she was not tempted to watch him sleeping any longer. "You're his beard, that's all. Best friends is better than no friends at all."

Catching up her clothes, she headed for the bathroom, determined to sort her head out for the day to come so that Carver need never know just how much she had enjoyed waking up next to him.

By the time they arrived at her sister's house a few hours later, Filipa was fairly sure she had herself under control. Carver didn't seem to be any the wiser about her gloriously unexpected sexual awakening as far as he was concerned, which was just as well. She knew she was acting a little out of character, a little shyer than usual, but he hadn't commented on it. In fact, he seemed far more relaxed today than he had yesterday, an attitude that resulted in them stamping up onto the Rutherfords' porch with his arm slung about her shoulders. It was so easy to pretend with him ... too easy, she realized. Because it wasn't a pretense, for her. This is so bad. I am a bad person.

Thankfully, Mila had plans for them, roping them both into helping set up the festive tree with Alys directing things from the middle of the living room, except when she wanted to get hands on, in which case Carver was enlisted to hold the little girl up as high as she wanted to go to "fix" the decorations they had been putting up.

"So," Mila said, after pulling her little sister into the kitchen for a moment, "how long have you been seeing each other? You were kind of evasive yesterday, you know."

Filipa rolled her eyes.

"Because I don't see how the length of a relationship should reflect on its strength," she countered, determined to continue being as vague as she possibly could be. "You were technically only seeing Cullen for a couple of months before you moved in with him and Alys."

"We'd been writing to each other for a year," Mila argued. "And my relationship has nothing to do with yours. You are my darling little sister, and in order to be sure you are being treated like the goddess you deserve, I need to know all the details."

"Translation - you are desperate for gossip you can lord over Ksenia and Mama," was Filipa's sardonic reply.

"That, too." Mila was nothing, if not honest, flashing her sister a grin to soften the reality. "You seem pretty comfortable with each other, I have to admit," she went on. "Last night must have been quite the night, though. I don't think I've seen you stare this much at a boy since you were fifteen."

"And I'm going to stop you right there," Filipa said quickly, though she couldn't stop the blush from rising again. That was hardly going to convince Mila she was wrong. "What does or does not happen in bed does not need to be shared with the world."

"I feel like this was a bad time to come into the kitchen," Carver said from the doorway, hovering with a faintly embarrassed look on his face.

"No, your timing is perfect," Filipa assured him, moving away from her sister to join Carver in the doorway.

That turned out to be a very bad move.

"Mistletoe!" Alys exclaimed with absolute delight.

Filipa turned her head to find the little girl bouncing up and down on her toes, waving her hand excitedly at the mantle above them. With a sinking feeling, she followed the line of that happy hand, and sighed. Yes, of course, there had to be a sprig of mistletoe hanging from the kitchen doorframe. She should have known there would be some in this house - it was one of Alys' favorite stories about Mila and Cullen getting together, the day she had all but forced them to kiss under the mistletoe. Mila snorted with laughter, but did nothing to call her daughter off as the little girl skipped forward.

"You have to kiss, it's a law," Alys insisted. "It's not like you don't kiss normally, 'cos you're all smoochy like Mum and Dad."

Filipa lifted her eyes to Carver's, seeing the panic hidden mostly deep in his gaze. Oh,bugger. They'd discussed this possibility, they'd agreed they could do it if they absolutely had to. But that had been before she had woken up in his arms and realized that she was quite probably in love with her best friend.

To her surprise, however, he seemed to swallow down that brief moment of panic, a small smile quirking at his lips as he glanced down at Alys.

"One small peck do you?" he asked.

The little redhead frowned, hands on her hips.

"That's not a kiss you give someone you love," she insisted firmly.

"It's the kind of kiss you give your Dad," Filipa pointed out, jumping on this as a last desperate hope.

"But Carver's not your Dad, he's your squeeze," Alys countered in her adorably stubborn way.

"She's got you there," Mila said from the kitchen. "And you're spending too much time with Isabela, Nuglet."

"You have to kiss under the mistletoe," Alys went on, ignoring her mother's commentary from the other side of the couple she wanted to see some real affection from. "It's a rule. Something bad happens if you don't."

"Well, we can't have anything bad happening to your Auntie Pip," Carver agreed.

Filipa stared at him, genuinely shocked that he seemed so calm in the face of this blatant bullying from a child. He caught her stare, his own smile more reassuring than she could have expected, reaching out to tug her a little closer by the belt loops on her jeans.

"Maker, anyone would think you'd never kissed before!"

Mila's laugh made Filipa blush, but it did remind her that she owed Carver the benefit of keeping up appearances. She could handle this. Right?

Forcing herself to relax, she rolled her eyes, rising up onto her toes to meet him as he bent down to her. For just a moment, she almost hesitated, but Carver didn't. His lips touched hers softly, just the barest brush, before claiming her mouth with a firm, gentle kiss that sent butterflies spiraling through her body. She responded without thinking, curling her hands to his wide biceps as his hands found somewhere to rest on her back, forcing herself not to give into the glorious sensation of being kissed by Carver Hawke. Just a mistletoe kiss, nothing to get worked up over, she told herself, deliberately drawing back before she could get lost in that sensation.

Alys cheered, clapping her hands together happily, and threw her arms around both of their waists in a slightly self-congratulatory hug. Filipa snorted with laughter, automatically wrapping one arm about the little girl as Carver's hands dropped from her own back.

"That was ... weird," he murmured.

Weird. The bubble burst instantly. She had promised him this would not get weird, and here they were. It was weird, and she was pretty sure it was her fault. She shouldn't have let herself respond so eagerly to that kiss; she should have let him lead it and end it on his own terms.

"It's always weird when an eleven-year-old forces you to kiss in public," Mila assured Carver cheerfully. "Come and have a cup of coffee, you'll get over it. And no more bullying people, little miss, or I'm going to have to forget where I put the cocoa again."

"Awww ..."

Alys' complaint brought a smile back to Carver's face, at least, both of them stepping back to let the little girl muscle between them to join her mother at the kitchen island. Filipa let out a long breath, rubbing a hand through her hair. She was going to have to try harder to keep this from getting weirder.

"Wasn't a bad kind of weird," Carver added, throwing her an almost teasing grin before stepping away to join her sister for the promised coffee.

And despite herself, Filipa felt a faint flare of hope at that comment, her own smile returning as she shuffled after him, catching Alys by the waist to lift her up onto the counter and tickle the little mischief-maker for her part in that awkward exchange. So weird didn't necessarily mean bad. That was good to know.

[revolutionary-demosthenes]

The Bonstetten-Gray relationship

Most of this information comes from “Thomas Gray (A Biography)” which can be found here: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.226086/page/n289/mode/2up.

Thomas Gray was an English poet born in 1716. He had many siblings, but the was the only one who survived childhood. According to poetry foundation, he “is generally considered the second most important poet of the eighteenth century” behind Alexander Pope.

Charles Victor de Bonstetten was born in 1745. He was a Swiss writer, and stayed with Francis Kinloch, John Laurens’s ex-boyfriend, (I will post more about him soon) when Johannes Von Müller and Alleyne Fitzherbert, 1st Baron, St. Helens were also staying with him, in what I call Kinloch’s Gay Retreat. (I will be posting about that very soon.) This relationship is pre-Kinloch, however something interesting is that Alleyne Fitzherbert also knew Gray, who wrote about Fitzherbert, “the little Fitzherbert is come as pensioner to St. John's, and seems to have all his wits about him.” 

Bonstetten met Gray near the end of the latter’s life. There was a 30 year age difference between them, but they were both adults. Bonstetten knew about Gray, but how they first came into contact is pretty hilarious. Here is the excerpt from the biography (Norton Nicholls was a friend of Gray’s): “So the November of 1769 wore uneventfully on, until one even- ing Norton Nicholls, who was concluding a rather protracted absence from his parish with a visit to Bath, happened to go to a ball at the Assembly Rooms. Light-hearted as ever, the youth- ful rector scrambled on to a table in order to have a better view of the dancing, and presently another young man did the same. They clutched one another for fear of falling, an unceremonious introduction which led to a lifelong friendship between them. The young man's name was Charles-Victor de Bonstetten, and he was the only son of a prominent member of the little group of patrician families which ruled the canton of Berne.” In other words, Nicholls and Bonstetten both stood on a table during a ball, holding each other so they wouldn’t fall! What a way to meet someone... They became friends, and either Bonstetten realized that Nicholls knew Gray, or Nicholls found out that Bonstetten revered Gray, but either way, Nicholls wrote a letter of recommendation for Bonstetten to be taught by one Thomas Gray. 

Side note: Bonstetten was going to marry an heiress, but wrote to his father that he was very happy he had not done so. Very, very happy. The he had not married a woman. He wrote in French, but the rough translation is, “O my dear father, I will now be admirably cheerful, and sing and dance all day like a man who woke up from a bad dream” Wow.

It appears that Bonstetten and Gray became fast friends after they met in London, December (of 1769, I’m assuming. The book is not terribly clear.) Bonstetten stayed in a coffee house often used by Gray and his friends. It seems that the affection Bonstetten felt for Gray came on quickly. He wrote Nicholls, after two weeks of being in Cambridge, “I never walk but with even steps and musing gate, and looks corner- cmg with the skyes ; and unfold my wrinkles only when I see Mr Gray, or think of you Then notwithstanding all your learnings and knowledge, I feel in such occasions that I have a heart, which you know is as some others a quite profane thing to carry under a black gown,” Gray wrote at the bottom of this letter, of Bonstetten, “I never saw such a boy our breed is not made on this model He is busy from morning to night, has no other amusement, than that of changing one study from another, likes nobody, that he sees here, and yet wishes to stay longer, tho’ he has pass’d a whole fortnight with us already His letter has had no correction whatever, and is prettier by half than English.”

At first, the Gray seemed to only see Bonstetten as a student, “But as the weeks went by, and his protege still stayed on at Cambridge, Gray grew ever more fascinated by him. He insisted that he should visit him at all times of the day, dine with him, work in his rooms. Together they read the English poets, went over the botanical lessons of Mr. Miller, played on the new pianoforte — a present from Stonhewer — and talked on and on until the college gate was about to close” They spent a lot more time together, which seems to have been initiated mainly by Gray. 

But it is this next passage in the biography that really hits me the hardest. It also is pretty clearly implying gay, which seems amazing to me, as this book was written in the 1950s, when being gay was still unjustly taboo. The book says that when Gray first met Bonstetten, he just saw him as a good student/an opportunity to impart knowledge onto someone deserving. But, “by now he realised that this newcomer was arousing in him emotions such as he had never experienced before, emotions obsessive and overwhelming. All his defences were swept away — the life so carefully organised, the formal and deliberate manner, the refuge which he had sought in books and antiquities and the interleaved Linnaeus. He was filled with disquiet, for he understood the secrets of his own nature he knew the existence of temptations which could not for one moment be contemplated by one who had been, all his life long, a strict observer of the laws of God and the laws of man. At the same time the very presence of Bonstetten brought him unimagined happiness. For a few short weeks he enjoyed once more what he had never known since his childhood days...” 

This appears to me like an intense internal struggle for Gray. He knew how society looked upon homosexuality, and as a respected poet, it was a big risk for him to be accused of this. As for the ‘secrets of his own nature’ I cannot honestly think of any other meaning of this but attraction for other men. Additionally, why would Gray. be ‘filled with disquiet’ about an intimate friendship? This strongly implies that Gray felt that the intimacy their relationship reached a level that was not accepted by society in that time. This passage especially makes me feel so bad for Gray, Bonstetten, and everyone who was/is not straight but are/were not allowed to be their true selves. Gray loved this man so deeply, yet if anyone found out about it, he would possibly be sentenced to death! An impossible situation, truly. But Bonstetten and Gray seemed willing to take the risk. Oddly, the biography says, that when Gray refused to talk of his personal life with Bonstetten, “Bonstetten concluded, a little surprisingly in the circumstances which then prevailed, that [Gray] had never been in love.” I would say very surprisingly... But of course this would also be an excellent cover for a romantic relationship. It is also worth noting that if Bonstetten only saw Gray as a mentor, why would he care if Gray would not talk of his early life when Bonstetten did?

However romantic their relationship got, it is clear that they both, though Gray especially, were very happy around each other. It was not to last, sadly. Bonstetten’s father wanted his son home. Gray made fun of this, and Bonstetten made a heart-felt appeal to his father, “Quand j ’ai enfin trouve un ami c'est pour le perdre et pour retomber dans cette sombre solitude ou je reste la proie des vices et de toutes les miseres humaines” which translates to “When I finally find a friend it is to lose him and to fall back into this dark loneliness where I remain the prey of vices and all human misery.” This was quite a smart and logical appeal, since Bonstetten’s father was worried about his son disgracing himself in some way or another, as many fathers worried about in those days (Henry Laurens...).

But even this was not enough, and Bonstetten departed in late March. As the biography says, “Gray was quite inconsolable All the warmth, the con- tentment, the affection that had lately filled his life would be drained out of it once more, and nothing but loneliness and emptiness lay ahead. And apart from his desolating sense of personal loss, he was deeply anxious about Bonstetten’s future He had tried so hard to sober the volatile creature, to control the fantasies and aspirations that filled his brain What dangers, what pitfalls of licentiousness and atheism now awaited him in France? What would happen to him when he returned to the domination of 'his cursed Father ’? As the dreaded day of separation drew near he tried to confide in Nicholls, but despaired of conveying to him the extent of his distress 'He gives me too much pleasure, and at least an equal share of inquietude. You do not understand him so well as I do, but I leave my meaning imperfect, till we meet I have never met with so extraordinary a Person God bless him ! I am unable to talk to you about anything else, I think.’ He went to London with Bonstetten, and said farewell to him on 23 March at four o’clock in the morning, when the Dover coach rumbled away into the cold and darkness.” The phrase “too much pleasure” also seems to suggest a relationship beyond friendship. As well as the phrase, ‘I leave my meaning imperfect’ perhaps he left it imperfect because he could not dare to write his real feelings.

Every single one of Bonstetten’s letters to Gray after leaving London are missing. Every. Single. One. One cannot even begin to speculate the sorts of things written in those letters! Three letters survived from Gray. These letters are pretty heartbreaking. It is clear that Gray missed Bonstetten deeply, despite only having known each other for a few months. “Never did I feel, my dear Bonstetten,” he wrote “to what a tedious length the few short moments of our life may be extended by impatience and expectation, till you had left me nor ever knew before with so strong a conviction how much this frail body sympathizes with the inquietude of the mind I am grown old m the compass of less than three weeks, like the Sultan in the Turkish Tales, that did but plunge his head into a vessel of water and take it out again (as the standers-by affirm'd) at the command of a Dervish, and found he had pass'd many years in captivity and begot a large family of children The strength and spirits that now enable me to write to you, are only owing to your last letter, a temporary gleam of sunshine Heaven knows, when it may shine again I did not conceive till now (I own) what it was to lose you, nor felt the solitude and insipidity of my own condition, before I possess’d the happiness of your friendship.”

Poor Gray! We do have a hint, however, later in this letter, what the letter Bonstetten had previously written had contained. Gray writes, “I return to your letter, it proves at least, that in the midst of your new gaieties, I still hold some place in your memory, and (what pleases me above all) it has an air of undissembled sincerity. Go on, my best and amiable Friend , to shew me your heart simply and without the shadow of disguise, and leave me to weep over it (as I do now) no matter whether from joy or sorrow.” Well, Gray was a poet, but this is just so beautiful... and so sad! This letter betrays such genuine grief and love over Bonstetten... if this letter survived, what must Bonstetten’s (which did not) contain? Bonstetten’s letter must have contained sadness about the separation as well. The line ‘without the shadow of disguise’ also strikes me as a particularly gay line... if they were just friends, why would there even be talk of parts of their heart ‘disguised?’ Also, Gray is saying that Bonstetten’s true heart makes him weep, which is basically saying, ‘You love me so much but that you love me so much is painful because you are away from me. But this is not the end of the tear-fest, my friends. Gray wrote Bonstetten again soon after, 

“Alas! how do I every moment feel the truth of what I have some- where read Ce n’est pas le voir que de Fen souvenir , and yet that remembrance is the only satisfaction I have left My life now is but a perpetual conversation with your shadow — The known sound of your voice still rings in my ears — There, on the corner of the fender you are standing, or tinkling on the pianoforte, or stretch'd at length on the sofa — Do you reflect, my dearest Friend, that it is a week or eight days, before I can receive a letter from you, and as much more before you can have my answer, that all that time (with more than Herculean toil) I am employ'd in pushing the tedious hours along, and wishing to annihilate them; the more I strive, the heavier they move and the longer they grow. I can not bear this place, where I have spent many tedious years within less than a month, since you left me.’ 

Time had obviously not softened the blow of Bonstetten's departure. Gray also repeatedly emphasizes that he is not living his life in the way that he was before Bonstetten entered his life. Again, we do not have any of Bonstetten’s letters, so we must only speculate what they could contain. But it seems clear that whatever they said, they did nothing to alleviate Gray’s pain, and perhaps even made Gray yearn ever more for his departed pupil. 

About a month later, Thomas Gray and Norton Nicholls went to Suffolk together, and had hoped to see Bonstetten while there, but when Bonstetten was there (I do not the know the reason why he was not or why Gray expected him to be) Gray wrote another plaintive letter:

“I am return'd, my dear Bonstetten, from the little journey I had made into Suffolk without answering the end proposed. The thought, that you might have been with me there, has embitter'd all my hours. Your letter has made me happy; as happy as so gloomy, so solitary a Being as I am is capable of being. I know and have too often felt the disadvantages I lay myself under, how much I hurt the little interest I have in you by this air of sadness so contrary to your nature and present enjoyments, but sure you will forgive, tho* you can not sympathize with me It is impossible for me to dissemble with you Such as I am, I expose my heart to your view, nor wish to conceal a single thought from your penetrating eyes — All that you say to me, especially on the subject of Switzerland, is infinitely acceptable. It feels too pleasing ever to be fulfill'd, and as often as I read over your truly kind letter, written long since from London,* I stop at these words La mort qui peat glacer nos bras avant qu’ils soient entrelaces.”

The French at the bottom of this letter translates to, “Death that can freeze our arms before they are intertwined.” 

There is also a line in this letter which raises the question “Did Gray love Bonstetten but Bonstetten not love Gray?” The aforementioned line is, “tho* you can not sympathize with me” which seems to suggest either that Bonstetten is not having as hard a time away from Gray, or that they loved each other in different ways. But this could also just mean that Bonstetten has other friends, or really anything along those lines. I also feel we should be extremely careful when claiming that love is one-sided when we only have one sides’ recollection of the relationship. People try and do this with the Laurens-Hamilton relationship... many of Laurens’s letters that survive are not as gushing as Hamilton’s but we are missing a great deal of them, and what we have was edited. But some people try to dismiss the relationship because of this. Also, this is one line out a letter that basically screams “I LOVE U!!” so...

I have found a list of all the Bonstetten letters, though there is no content. There are dates of the letters, though. Here is the link: http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?collection=letters&author=Bonstetten,+Charles+Victor+de,+1745-1832&sortby=placelet_up.

There’s a letter to Norton Nicholls in there too, and the only reason I’m mentioning it is because Bonstetten uses the phrase ‘methinks’ which is just wonderful.

But it seems that this relationship would die down soon afterwards. The biography says, “Such intensity of emotion could not last for very long It exhausted Gray's vitality at the time, and may well have had a permanent effect upon his health, but as the weeks went on he began to view the whole affair in a more reasonable light He saw the absurdity of his relationship with Bonstetten as well as its sadness; and indeed the absurdity, for all his over- mastering charm, of Bonstetten himself. Even at this early stage he began to find the style of the letters from Paris * un peu trop alembique', affected and over-refined. They were not to grow less so with the passage of time. Bonstetten made uncon- vincing excuses for not writing more often, and 'he seems at present to give into all the French nonsense and to be employ'd much like an English boy broke loose from his Governor ' It was the natural reaction of a high-spirited young man after those sober months at Cambridge, months of serious reading and celibate living and an unequal friendship between youth and age; but it displeased Gray, and the pangs of separation began to torment him less.”

We can tell from this that Bonstetten was the one who really began to separate from Gray once their geographic distance and cultural distance (to some extent, because Bonstetten was adopting more French manners, which displeased Gray,) grew too great. This parallels the Kinloch/Laurens relationship to some extent, I feel, because Laurens and Kinloch relationship deteriorated once Laurens was in London and Kinloch was still part of the Geneva social circles.

At any rate, this is what I have been able to find on the Bonstetten/Gray relationship. In conclusion: Bonstetten and Gray were likely lovers, despite a very large age difference, (Bonstetten was abut 24, and Gray 53) but the relationship did not last long. (If you want to think of it as a summer fling in December, I won’t stop you.) Gray appears to have been the more gushy letter-writer, but we have none of Bonstetten’s so it is really impossible to say. Bonstetten died in 1771, while Bonstetten was in Geneva. I’m trying to figure out what Bonstetten did, and if he stayed in Geneva or traveled between 1771 and 1775, when he went to Kinloch’s Gay Retreat.

Hope you enjoyed!

[gunnerpalace]

Hyperchlorate: How I’d Rewrite Bleach (Part I)

Okay, this is it, kids. This is gonna be—as best as I’m able to manage—the ultimate synthesis of all my scattered discourse on Bleach, combined with a condensation of what I’d do about it all. Buckle up, because these posts are going to be long, and I’m not putting it behind a spoiler. I’d apologize for destroying your dashboard, but I put in the work.

WHAT’S UP WITH THE NAME?

What's referred to as (liquid) bleach is usually a solution of sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) in water. Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) is usually added to slow the decomposition of bleach into sodium chlorate (NaClO3), and sodium chloride (NaCl)—that is to say, common salt. (How appropriate!)

Sodium perchlorate (NaClO4) is a perchlorate salt which is very closely related to the above and, when treated hydrochloric acid (HCl), makes perchloric acid (HClO4) and common salt. The former is very nasty in and of itself and is mostly used to make other, worse things.

In the context of chemistry, the prefix hypo- means one less oxygen atom than something suffixed -ite, while the prefix per- means one more oxygen than something suffixed -ate. (See here for a chart if you want.) The prefix hyper- isn't used in chemistry, but I think it sounds better.

tl;dr: It's a weird chemistry not-joke used as a code name for this project.

WHAT’S THE PITCH?

The short version of the pitch is: Most people who liked Bleach as a thing liked the initial Karakura and Soul Society arcs, and interest gradually dropped off after that.

Therefore, if you wanted to rewrite Bleach, you’d want to focus on that time period and expand on it and develop it further. You would also want to rework whatever came after, and more thoroughly integrate it with that time period in tone, focus, and perspective.

To do that, you first need to understand how it was structured and what made it work in the first place.

OKAY, WHAT’S THE LONGER VERSION?

The longer version of the pitch is: Bleach was supposedly a shōnen. One of the Big Three shōnen, in fact (in Western thinking). But understanding Bleach and why it worked (and why it fell apart) requires debunking that idea.

You see, the thing is that Bleach was never particularly good at being a shōnen, at least as most people think of such a thing. When people think of shōnen, they tend to think of four (4) things: 1. A Certain Kind of Protagonist, 2. Worldbuilding, 3. Plot, and 4. Fights. Bleach doesn’t really fit the pattern when it comes to these elements. I’ve been over these before, to a certain extent (many times), but I’ll reiterate them here:

A Certain Kind of Protagonist: Goku. Luffy. Naruto. Natsu. Kenshin. Yusuke. I don’t have to name their anime or manga; you already know who they are and what they’re from. Ichigo is certainly a kind of protagonist, but as Sera (@hashtagartistlife​) once pointed out, he’s very different from what one normally thinks of when they consider the genre. Ichigo is a punk with a heart of gold (a la Yusuke) but he lacks the inner drive and confidence of all those other protagonists. He is, in fact depressive at the start of the series; he’s at best listless and nihilistic, and at worst suicidal. He’s something of an outcast loner with a tsundere personality he developed as a kind of mental armor. He’s deliberately mediocre at and unengaged with things. That changes (and the story starts) when Rukia enters his life and gives him the ability to act on his desires to do good and protect people. In other words: his confidence comes from outside of himself. Indeed, it’s a recurring plot-point that the longer he’s separated from Rukia, the more his confidence wavers. In addition to all the other things that were noted as marking him out, this one is crucial, because the average shōnen protagonist is possessed of unwavering confidence. Having Ichigo’s confidence (and his animating ethos) externalized to Rukia essentially splits the traditional protagonist role in two. (Indeed, you could readily say Ichigo and Rukia are deuteragonists, despite the story focusing on Ichigo—he eclipses her visually, but her gravity is unmistakably present and dominant.) This by itself tells you that you are dealing with a different kind of story than usual. This fits in with one of the reasons people tend to like Bleach, specifically the first. 

Worldbuilding: Few shōnen rival Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings in sophistication and detail, but they usually have well-developed worlds where whatever is going on substantiates—and ideally enhances—the plot and the journey of the protagonist. Think of the world of One Piece, which is excellent at this, or those of Naruto or Fairy Tale, which still sufficiently sell that there is a living, breathing setting in which the story is taking place. Bleach is something more like Plato’s Allegory of the Cave: it holds up on its own if you accept its premises at face value, but if you start to investigate more carefully, things stop really making all that much sense. My own personal go-to example is the identity of the two unrevealed Great Noble Houses which presumably wielded power in Central 46. (I don’t consider Can’t Fear Your Own World a satisfactory answer for this, or other questions, and notably it has only revealed one of them.) Another example is the history of the Great Noble Houses, or Soul Society in general, or the Soul King. All of these (and much more) were things that were shoved into data books or follow-on novels, if they were ever addressed at all. The more one inspects the worldbuilding of Bleach, the more it feels like it’s flat or significant sections of it were missing—like it’s a movie set instead of an actual place. Most fiction strives to present, as much as possible, a kind of simulated world that you could imagine existing. Bleach, perversely, rather brazenly gives us a set of stages with clearly defined borders instead. This ties into the third and fifth reason people tend to like Bleach.

Plot: In academic circles, you will be told that what distinguishes literary fiction from genre fiction is the former is about characters (i.e., how events impact them), and the latter is about plot (i.e., what happens). For example, White Noise by Don DeLillo is not about “The Airborne Toxic Event,” it is about what that catalyzes in the protagonist’s life. Something like One Piece is very much a genre story about adventure. Things happen to the characters, sure, but they don’t really change all that much over time. They’re all following their dreams, and those dreams are (for the protagonists) often immutable. Bleach doesn’t really follow that structure. Ichigo and Rukia have an ethical viewpoint, but they’re not really on a journey to implement it. Things largely just kind of happen to them. In this regard, Bleach is much more like a literary work than a genre one. It also features, as Sera pointed out in an earlier post, a depiction of Joseph Campbell’s monomyth within the Karakura and Soul Society arcs: we see Ichigo and Rukia go through the process of “becoming a hero.” Protagonists like Luffy or Goku already are the heroes, it’s just that nobody else knows it yet. The plots that unfold are thus very different. Furthermore, Bleach is also often a symbolic work. For example, the Karakura II, Hueco Mundo and Fake Karakura arcs are a sort of inverse deconstruction of the earlier Karakura and Soul Society arcs; they function as an anti-monomyth and refutation of it (think of it as being like “how a hero can fail”), a la how Bloodborne subverts the monomyth to incorporate Lovecraftian mythos: they are designed to cast down the achievements of the protagonists and demoralize the reader, rather than being triumphant and uplifting. Bleach also frequently prioritizes thematic elements over verisimilitude. One example is the association of romance with death (Isshin and Masaki, Ryuuken and Kanae, Kaien and Miyako, Rangiku and Gin, and so on). Another is loneliness (no one ever seems to really hang out or have many friendships), especially when it comes to parents (Isshin and Ryūken have strained relationships with Ichigo and Uryū, Ikumi is a single mother, Chad parents are dead, Orihime’s were reverse-abandoned, Keigo and Mizuiro’s are absent, Tatsuki’s are never seen, and so on). Bleach absolutely prioritizes characters and themes over traditional plot or plausibility—that is to say, how things feel is often much more important than how exciting or realistic they are, which ties into the second and third reasons people like Bleach.

Fights: Bleach’s fights tend to suck. There are some exceptions, sure, but the power of those exceptions usually stems from the emotional content and personal nature of them. Something like Ichigo vs. Byakuya, Uryū vs. Mayuri, or Rukia vs. Aaroniero (to name a later example) are very emotionally charged fights. That said, even fights that aren’t particularly interesting, like Ikkaku vs. Edrad, tend to be more about showing us aspects of the characters’ personalities more so than about the fight itself. In fiction, one is encouraged to show rather than tell, and more extreme situations (which violent confrontations are one example of) allow one to show deeper and more extreme aspects of a character than slice-of-life situations usually do. This is what Bleach’s fights are often in service of. This is evident from how uninteresting the average Bleach fight is. There’s a lot of sword-pressing, a lot of ineffectual diagonal slashes, a lot of appearing behind someone to their surprise, a lot of losing an arm as a serious injury, a lot of no-selling attacks, and whoever reveals how their powers work first usually loses. The fighting quickly boils down to shikai and bankai, or their equivalents, with the other aspects of fighting, like kidō (and the rest of zankensoki) being discarded except when they reflect some matter of character (for example, Byakuya or Uryū’s more analytical and technical approach to things). Combat in Bleach isn’t about a robust combat system or consistency, nor is it about what looks cool—it is about what shows off the character in question. This is unusual for a shōnen and ties directly into the second reason people like Bleach.

I’ve talked a lot about why Bleach is liked, and it’s now prudent to get into that. In my opinion, the reasons that early Bleach was well-liked and well-received can be boiled down to five (5) things: 1. Deuteragonists, 2. Character Designs, 3. Mystery, 4. Contrast, and 5. Urban Fantasy Setting. I’ve been over most of these before, but they also bear repeating.

Deuteragonists: I have explored this concept in quite some detail (see: 1, 2, 3) before, so I’m not going to go too deeply into its mechanics here. The most obvious selling point here is that splitting the role of the protagonist into two mutually supporting halves that are fallible in their own ways is A. relatively unique, and B. humanizing. Ichigo and Rukia are by no means either the first example of this (consider Sherlock Holmes and John Watson) or the last (I've not seen Psycho-Pass, but Shinya Kogami and Akane Tsunemori seem to have much the same relationship), but I am unaware of any (supposed) shōnen prior to Bleach that attempted it. (That’s not to say that it doesn’t exist, but rather, that its obscurity if it does simply reinforces the point.) That made it unique for its time. That Rukia is a (competent and independent, but still vulnerable and feminine) woman only makes it even more unique, especially given the medium and how women tend to be treated within it. It also allowed for both Ichigo and Rukia to have problems as characters, and to largely grow beyond those problems over the course of the series, rather than there being yet another immutable and unchanging rock of a protagonist like so many other shōnen feature. When coupled with their interpersonal banter and dynamics, they formed a major draw together simply because their sharing of the role was so unusual and well-executed.

Character Designs: Bleach suffers from a dizzying overabundance of characters. Many of them are only present for a few chapters, at most, and yet even characters who appeared very briefly have any number of adherents out there among the readership or viewership. Consider characters like Starrk, Bambietta, or Bazz B., who have little to no establishment, and little panel time relative to the series, but who nonetheless gained resolute fans. Sometimes they have backstories shoehorned in to help sell them (as in the case of Starrk and Bazz B.; the most hilarious example is probably Giriko being given a flashback several chapters after he was already dead), but often they succeeded without them. They also often succeed despite their personalities largely being remixes of existing characters. How? Because of their character design and attitudes. Bleach was enormously successful in delivering characters that appealed to somebody, even at almost only a glance. The characters almost radiate a sense of mie purely through their designs. This sort of visual imminence routinely overcame all other character shortfalls. 

Mystery: The anime of Bleach began airing on October 5, 2004. Coincidentally, Lost started airing on September 22, 2004. They began at almost exactly the same time. What does one have to do with the other? Nothing, except for the fact that they both relied heavily on mystery and both capitalized on it (in different markets) at almost exactly the same time. The bulk of Bleach is predicated on inculcating a sense of mystery. This is why basic facts that would often be mentioned in passing are kept tightly wrapped secrets until the end of the series and beyond. (Token examples, great and small: Who are the other two Great Noble Houses? Where’s Yoruichi’s zanpakutō and why can she turn into a cat? What’s the deal with the Soul King? Why is there a fox-man like Sajin around, and is he a yōkai or what? What was the Final Getsuga Tenshō?) Even things that were resolved, like Ichigo’s parentage, what was going on with his “inner Hollow” and zanpakutō, and so on, were kicked down the road as long as possible to create an air of mystery. The most obvious manifestation of this was all the guessing about the bankai of various characters that the series egged on. This sense of mystery and a desire for closure kept quite a lot of people invested when their patience for the rest of the series ran out.

Contrast: While lots of anime and manga frequently leaven their drama with comedy, or vice-versa, Bleach was unique for the means in which it did so. It’s worthwhile to draw a contrast with something very close to its opposite: Gintama. Gintama is particularly notable because of its odd mix of different elements; it has a fantastical alternate history setting and can go from irreverent comedy (running the gamut from pop-culture puns to crude toilet humor) to deadly serious drama in just a few pages. However, Gintama’s default mode is comedy. Bleach is a relatively grounded secret history with a default mode that is dramatic. In this regard, they are equal but opposite. Early Bleach was a very dark and grim, almost Lovecraftian setting, and often had elements of horror or was just plain gross, but was lightened up through the way in which it approached that and its frequent inclusion of humor. This contrast is also heightened by the relative lack of fighting in the early manga; when fighting does occur, it’s all the more notable because the focus is largely upon slice-of-life elements. As the series progressed, this element of contrast was lost as it became relentlessly serious (in the process, becoming desensitized to its own sense of horror, great or small) and tried to become a battle manga.

Urban Fantasy Setting: Although Bleach ultimately goes on to visit rather fantastical places, it started out in a very grounded and realistic fashion. The sleepy (fictional) suburb of Karakura in Western Tokyo is just the right mix of urban and rural to be relatable to almost anyone. Simply by virtue of being based on a real area (the region around Tama), Karakura feels lived-in and well-developed, despite the fact that we see very little of it. (This is especially true compared to Soul Society [be it the Seireitei or Rukongai] or Hueco Mundo, both of which are very sterile and fantastical in a bad way [especially since the former is really just a stylized representation of the Heian period in Japan]. There is a very old parody of DBZ featuring the line "We need to go to some place that's completely desolate and... that would never be in real life at all, and it's huge, and it's a bajillion miles wide and it's nowhere to be found on earth—but it's right over there!" and that accurately describes both Soul Society and Hueco Mundo. I’ll get into this more in the next post.) The initial focus on day-to-day high school life also gave it a solid grounding for the age bracket of its intended audience. In this capacity, it exactly nailed the setting of teen-focused urban fantasy. The interesting thing is it did so before a lot of the most prominent novels in that genre were written. In other words, Bleach was a market-leader in urban fantasy for teens, and beat many of its peers to the punch. Just as deuteragonists were a major selling point out of their sheer novelty, so was the setting.

As an aside at this junction, I’d like to direct your attention to something from the Wikipedia page on urban fantasy, regarding the distinction between urban fantasy and supernatural romance:

The two share 90% of their genre DNA. However, the main differences are this: Urban fantasy focuses on an issue outside of a romantic relationship between two characters. Paranormal romance focuses on a romantic relationship between two characters and how outside forces affect that relationship. The best litmus test to determine if a story is urban fantasy or paranormal romance is to ask the following question: 'If the romance between Character A and Character B were removed, would the plot still stand as a viable storyline?' If the answer is 'yes,' chances are good it's urban fantasy. If the answer is 'no,' it's most likely paranormal romance.

Now, whether you think the relationship between Ichigo and Rukia is romantic or not, I would note two things. The first is that if their relationship was removed, the plot would not “still stand as a viable storyline.” The second is that the events of the Karakura and Soul Society arcs are very much about “how outside forces affect [their] relationship.” (As were all subsequent events involving them, really.) In short, I would argue that it’s impossible to suggest that early Bleach doesn’t sit somewhere that very closely approximates paranormal romance, if not being one outright. In this regard, Sera’s assertion that Bleach is a shōjo is a lot closer to the mark than you might think, as is my own that it was on the path to becoming either a battle shōjo or a couple shōnen.

HOLY SHIT, GIVE ME AN EXECUTIVE SUMMARY SO FAR?

To summarize, Bleach started off as a pseudo-paranormal romance (if not an actual one) that succeeded on the basis of being—on the one hand—grounded, characterful, and novel, while—on the other—also being mysterious, emotive, and meaningful. Bleach was, at the start, not necessarily trying to sell itself as an unbiased account of “things that happened in this fictional world,” or create an expansive universe. It was instead a rather intimate story set in a particular place, focusing very much on its characters and on conjuring up emotions.

Even when it went to Soul Society, you might still just as easily think it as something like an off-beat Kabuki play rather than a traditional shōnen. (Perhaps making it not so surprising that it was so easily adapted into a musical play.)

I feel that Bleach is also notable for embracing the aesthetic principles of Japanese art and culture that other traditional shōnen usually do not heavily emphasize; it features elements of not just Kawaii (of course), but Jo-ha-kyū, Geidō, Miyabi, Iki, Ensō, Shibui, Yūgen, and Wabi-sabi. (Indeed, I would say that an over-attachment to those last four is a major component of why it ultimately failed.) This also gave it a unique flair.

I think it was ultimately so successful to begin with because it was a unique melange of elements.

BUT I LIKED BLEACH BECAUSE OF SOME PARTICULAR THING YOU DISMISSED AS ANCILLARY!

There’s no accounting for taste. I’m just telling you what Bleach’s focus was and why it was initially exciting and good at what it did.

OKAY, FINE, WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH REWRITING IT?

Like I said, I think it’s important to first understand what worked and why. Then, it’s important to understand why things went wrong. (And boy, did things go wrong...) Only then can you reasonably propose solutions to fix things.

Next time, we’ll go into what went wrong, which involves a mixture of poor planning, shifting priorities, inflexibility, overindulgence, and hubris. But for that story, you’ll have to stay tuned for Part II!

[mollymauk-teafleak]

Awkward Sibling Hug

Guess which minor ship I’ve jumped aboard. Toot toot for there being no content so I make my own! 

If you enjoy this or my other work, reblog, leave a comment on ao3 or donate to my ko-fi! 

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Cassandra’s mouth twitched up into a smile at the sign on the elevator doors. Printed on stiff, dove grey paper with the crest of the building at the border (what kind of apartment building had a crest?) so it didn’t marr the effortless elegance of the foyer, its tone of polite exasperation was clear nonetheless.

No residents are to tamper with the elevator under any circumstances. Regardless of previous experience with mechanical engineering. A qualified technician has been contacted.

She had a pretty good idea who that referred to.

The stairs weren’t so bad at first. The black carpet was so thick and lush Cassandra felt as if every step were a spring and the whole staircase was wrapped in nothing but thick glass so you could watch the city unfold as you climbed. And climbed. And climbed.

By the time she was almost at the top, even her small backpack of books and a few days worth of clothes was starting to feel like it was full of rocks. She started to wonder if this ridiculous, ostentatious building was actually so tall she’d start to get altitude sickness before she reached her brother’s door.

She’d been here a few times before, of course, whenever time away from her classes coincided with the part of her that missed Percy getting louder than the part that wanted to strangle him when she saw him. And of course, Cassandra had grown up surrounded by luxury, they all had, there was a part of her that could still sink into it so easily.

Percy’s apartment was the topmost one, the one their father had been granted when their company had bought the building in the first place and fixed it up and polished it into what it was. It made sense for Percy to live here, of course, Cassandra knew that. They’d probably always intended it for him when he came of age. But especially now that everything Mother and Father had built was his, the company, the subsidiaries, the charities, all of it and this building lay in the centre of it all like a beating heart. Like a glass and steel spider squatting in the middle of it’s impossibly intricate web. Surely here was where he belonged.

She just didn’t understand how he bore it.

Surrounded by things that reminded them of their parents. Decor so elegant that it could only have been chosen by their mother. Old heirlooms that had the family crest engraved in it. Books their father that thumbed through so often, highlighted and crossed out and scribbled his thoughts down in the margins so he wouldn’t forget them later, almost like he was bottling his sudden flashes of brilliance.

Cassandra would have torn and ripped it to shreds, as small as she possibly could, and set it on fire.

That was another one of their reasons she saw her brother so infrequently. A reason other than the distance between school and the city, the distance she’d placed there herself, or the natural distance but there by two siblings who were either just too different or far too similar.

It was the other, deeper distance between the two of them, though who’d put that one there, neither of them had any idea. It was a distance made of awkward silences, an uncomfortable tugging in the chest, when your throat closes suddenly because a slant of a jaw, a sudden smile reminded you of someone you missed so desperately.

It was hard to be around.

But Percy was all Cassandra had left. And she was all he had left. So she was coming for a surprise visit, just to see his tired, heavy lidded eyes brighten a little at the sight of her and hear him call her Cassie and look so proud when she told him her most recent grades, even if she’d been a little disappointed in them herself. It would be worth the twinge in her chest when he’d smile like their mother.

Cassandra rapped on the black wood door. There was a silver number nailed to the front, a perfect round 0, she could see her reflection stretched and twisted in its surface.

No one came to her knock which didn’t surprise her. Percy was probably sequestered in his workshop like a medieval monk, bent over greasy gears and cogs and springs rather than illuminated manuscripts, music blaring through his earphones which he turned up far too loud to be good for his health.

Another reason why Cassandra had come. Someone needed to make sure Percy got some sun every once in a while. And while she didn’t wholly appreciate that the task had been left to her, it was a small price to pay to feel less lonely. Or at least to be lonely with someone else, who understood the unique, sharp de Rolo brand of loneliness, passed down like a particularly ugly heirloom.

The door was locked but Cassandra had a key, fishing around in her pocket before closing her fingers around the reassuringly cold metal. Trying incredibly hard to feel, or at least act like, she felt at home, she dropped her backpack straight in the hallway and kicked off her trainers.

“Percival?” she called, knowing it annoyed him when she called him that. Maybe he wasn't at home, he might be at work, at one of the rare meetings he was required to attend as de facto head of the company. Or maybe out combing the scrap yards or making deals with the less than reputable scrap dealers he still kept in contact with from his slightly seedier days before he successfully won back his parents’ worldly goods.

She walked through to the living room, noting how the whole place still looked like an Ikea showroom, perfect and pristine and unlived in, all of the mess of her brother’s existence carefully stored away behind his workshop door. The walls were white, the furnishings were gleaming steel and black leather, the cupboards looked like they’d never been opened.

The sofa had a man on it.

A man who was completely and utterly naked. Feet up on the coffee table and a book in his hands, resting in his lap, mercifully providing some cover.  

Cassandra stopped in her tracks. The man regarded her with eyes that were more bemused than embarrassed or startled, relaxing back on her brother’s sofa like he’d always been there.  

His hair was thick and black, tied carelessly into a knot on the top of his head that was coming undone, spilling locks like dripping ink down his shoulders. His ears were delicatley pointed, subtly elvish. His mouth turned up in a perpetual amused smirk.

“Well, hello,” he said, his voice sprightly, accented like her’s and Percy’s though with a bounce to it that no de Rolo had ever possessed.

“Hello,” she replied politely, not left with many other options, short of throwing her shoes at him.

There was a long silence, while the two of them sat and marveled at the ridiculous awkwardness of their situation. Fortunately, just as things were getting on to the point where they really should have to do something, bare footsteps came from down the hallway and things got insurmountably worse.

“Vax, darling, I don’t think my arse can stand another round just yet but I had a think about what I want for breakfast and I’ve decided on your co-”

There was no awkward pause with Percy, he went straight for an alarmed, birdlike shriek, jumping and slamming his back against the wall. Fortunately, he was wearing boxer shorts.

“Cassandra, what in the name of fuck are you doing here?” he yelped, face immediately turning vermillion.

“I thought I’d treat my brother to a surprise visit,” she replied, her words still very deliberately calm and careful, even as her brain was shrieking inside her skull. Never in a million years would she have expected this and she couldn’t see why the gods were punishing her so. “I didn’t know you were going to have...company.”

“You could have called!” Percy ground out through gritted teeth, eyes darting to this Vax man, sitting on the sofa and grinning delightedly like this was the best day of his life.

“I’m Vax’ildan, by the way,” he chirped, fluttering his fingers at her.

“Can you go dress please?” Percy managed to choke out, eyes begging shamelessly, looking like he was trying to decide whether or not to just make a break for it.

“Of course, my love,” Vax’ildan rose languidly, still keeping his book rakishly covering the juncture between his legs, though Cassandra snapped her eyes to the view out of the wall to wall windows and kept them firmly there until the delicate, padding footfalls of the half elf had passed her by. “Lovely to finally meet you, Cassandra!”

The two siblings stood silently in their torment for a long few moments, neither able to quite look at the other, Percy in his embarrassment, Cassandra because she had never seen her brother in this little clothing and had no intention of starting today.

“I like men,” Percy ventured cautiously after a while, “I don’t think I ever...um, formally announced that to you.”

“It was a little obvious,” Cassandra replied, wondering which muscles the human body used to cringe because she was pretty sure hers were going to ache tomorrow.

Percy shifted from foot to foot, looking utterly lost for what to say or do.

“He called you love,” Cassandra eventually said, her voice quiet and curious.

Percy’s dark eyes flickered to her, surprised. He hadn’t been expecting her to say that. Neither had Cassandra. Both of them got the sudden, strong sensation that they were in the vast uncharted waters of their relationship.

“He did…”

“And do you?” Cassanda asked, making herself look at him. His face, at least. “Do you love him, I mean?”

Percy’s mouth opened and closed, though not in the way where he didn’t know the answer. More in the way where he was trying to form words he wasn’t used to saying.

“I do love him,” he eventually murmured, “I know that’s strange for me. But I do, I love him. I’d like to spend the rest of my life with him, if I’m allowed.”

Cassandra allowed herself a small smile and a weak chuckle. She reshouldered her backpack, striding past Percy, towards the spare bedroom that was always hers when she stayed over. As she passed, she patted him on the shoulder in the detached, fond way they had. Though for the first time, there was a spark of hope in it.

“I didn’t know you had it in you, brother.”

[tisfan]

Moving Violations

Square: G5 - Carjacking Title: Moving Violations Warning: None Rating: Teen Characters: Tony Stark/Bucky Barnes Tags: kidnapping, carjacking, car chases, car crash Summary: This evening was not going according to plan. Now he was going to have to call the god damned police and file a fucking report and then call his insurance and file another report, and then he was going to have to call Pepper and-- Link: A03 Word Count:  2,545 Posted for @winterironbingo *also include relationship if not just winteriron

The conference was over, finally. Tony dragged his suitcase out to the car garage. He would have had the concierge do it, but it was late, the bellhops were all busy, and Tony didn’t want to wait. He wanted to get in his car, stop somewhere for an extra triple large coffee, a donut the size of his head, and get the hell out of Dodge. Or New Jersey, honestly, which was worse, and there he was anyway.

He popped the trunk, pushed his suitcase into the back, and was just straightening up when someone pushed a hard, metal thing against his back. “Gimme the keys, motherfucker, and don’t try anything funny.”

God damn it. This was not what he’d had in mind, checking out of the hotel immediately after the conference instead of waiting until morning, like everyone else. Suppressing a sigh, Tony slowly lifted his hands, letting the keys dangle.

Now he was going to have to call the god damned police and file a fucking report and then call his insurance and file another report, and then he was going to have to call Pepper and--

The car thief snagged the key fob, then shoved, pushing Tony forward into the trunk. The locking mechanism scraped against his midsection, tearing his shirt and bruising his skin. “Get it--”

There was a second man, a black ski mask pulled down to hide his face. He reached into the trunk and cut the safety cable that unlocked the trunk from the inside.

“Get in,” the first guy said, prodding Tony with the -- gun, probably -- metal thing in his back, giving him a matched bruise.

There was not a lot of room in the trunk, with the spare tire, his suitcase, and it being a sports model and not some soccer mom’s SUV.

This... was even worse. And just when Tony thought it couldn’t get any worse, Ski Mask reached in and groped at Tony’s clothes, what the fuck. “Hey, fuck you, what the--” Ski Mask shoved at Tony’s face, making him crack his head on the back of the tiny space, and came up with Tony’s phone. “Damn it, give me that!” The guy tossed it onto the floor of the parking garage with a snort, and then slammed the trunk shut, narrowly missing another crack on Tony’s head.

“Come on,” the first guy said, rushing around to the driver’s side. “Three more minutes until the window closes.”

“Not getting paid enough for this job,” Ski Mask said, but he was also getting in the car. The doors slammed, the car jerked into reverse and skidded out of the parking lot. Whoever was driving was good, Tony noted, shifting gears precisely, and handling the car well. At least, he wasn’t getting slammed around inside the tiny space.

(more under the cut)

Just to make sure, he tried pulling on the release lever, but it did nothing. Tony felt around, trying to get an idea for what was available. He found a screwdriver in his jacket pocket, and a pair of wire cutters. He couldn’t reach his pants pocket, cramped as it was, but since they’d tossed his phone, he didn’t think there was anything useful in there, anyway. A bunch of business cards, some conference swag -- pens, fidget toys, a couple of novelty condoms.

He felt around in front of him. Trunk, liner carpet-- oh! The tail light. He could... he could work with that, probably. He felt around for the screws holding it in place.

It was all kinds of awkward, trying to maneuver his arm into position to work the screwdriver, but he managed to get the cover off. He felt for the wires. There should be... yes, there. They were mounted into place, but a couple of snips with the cutters took care of that.

Now, he could make the tail light do what he wanted. He listened for a moment -- wherever they were taking him, it was on some kind of highway. Good. He tapped the wires together, carefully, making the light blink. Short-short-short-long-long-long-short-short-short. Pause. Short-short-short-long-long-long-short-short-short. Not many people knew Morse code anymore, but SOS was still pretty universal. Hopefully someone would notice and call them in.

Night driving wasn’t one of Bucky’s favorite things. Drivers tended to ignore motorcyclists with almost aggressive tenacity even during the day, and night was worse. He’d just missed being hit with a car that had rolled up behind him, swerved around, and then pulled back in the lane without adequate clearance.

Crazy, early drunk, Bucky decided. He dropped his speed again, letting some room get between him and the car.

Idiot left his blinker on, too, continually flashing.

Bucky rolled his eyes, and--

Wait, what? The tail light was blinking, rhythmically, and not in the simple click-click that most turn signals did. Bucky’d seen a few kits in his day, that made the tail-lights do an almost marquee scroll, which was really distracting late at night, but this wasn’t doing that, either.

Might be a short; it wasn’t any of Bucky’s business anyway. If the guy got pulled over for a burned out taillight, so much the better.

The light went dead for a moment, then started up again. The other rear light stayed steady, the whole time.

Flick, flick, flick. Flash, flash, flash.

What? Something nagged at him for a moment, and he lost the car as it wove around a tractor trailer. Bucky opened the throttle, speeding up.

SOS? Couldn’t possibly be. He only knew Morse Code because he watched entirely too many old war movies with his buddy Steve.

He pulled in behind the car again, watching, counting.

Yeah, that was… that had to be deliberate.

Bucky considered pulling over and calling 9-11 on his phone, when the car changed lanes twice. Bucky had to speed up to keep it in sight, and then it was headed off one of the exits, one of the complicated things that had two side paths, plus a jughandle. If he didn’t keep his eye on the car, he wouldn’t know where it went. Who even knew if the cops would take the story seriously?

Bucky followed them off the interstate.

“If this is someone’s idea of a prank,” Bucky muttered, “I am never gonna try bein’ a good samaritan again.”

Not that he had a plan. He was on a motorcycle, for fuck’s sake. It’s not like he could clip them and make them stop without practically killing himself in the process.

The tail lights flickered a few more times, then stopped, as if the person -- if it was a person -- was getting tired.  

At least there were traffic lights now. The car would have to slow down. Bucky grumbled, then decided to risk it. He took the next right hand turn, then an immediate left, slipping around traffic, taking advantage of his smaller vehicle and probably making all sorts of moving violations, but he managed to get ahead of them.

“Oh, this is so stupid,” he told himself, but as he came up on the car from the side, he slowed down, aimed the bike, and jumped off, letting the motorcycle smash into the passenger side door.

Inside the car, the passenger-side airbag exploded. The car swerved sharply and went into a spin, smashing into the guardrail. When it finally came to a stop, one tire was flat, and the bumper and whole side of the car had been liberally crumpled.

The driver’s side door opened, and a man floundered out of the car. “What the fuck!” he demanded. “What the--” He spotted Bucky, and his lip curled into a snarl. “What the absolute fuck, you asshole!”

Bucky’s sharp gaze raked the man, taking in dark clothes, aggression, and-- a gun holstered under one arm. Fuck, this was such a bad idea.

He staggered, letting his body pull him at a rolling gate. Playing drunk. “Dude, where’d you--” he acted like he couldn’t find his helmet’s strap, struggling with it. “Saw th’ car in front of you, and the car behind you, but not you…” He got the helmet off, still closing the distance. “What the hell’d you do to my bike?”

Two more steps, and Bucky threw the helmet at the guy, smashing him in the face with the fiberglass, hand automatically reaching, and-- grabbed the gun. “Don’t fucking move, asshole,” he yelled, putting the barrel right over the guy’s bloody nose.

The guy’s eyes went big and round in shock. “What-- Okay, man, okay, Jesus fuck, what the fuck am I going to do now?”

“Dude, tell your friend that he cannot possibly shoot me before I shoot you,” Bucky advised, stepping to one side and keeping the first guy between himself and the passenger. “He looks a little banged up to me, he’s likely to shoot you in the back before he gets one off on me.”

“What are you, some kind of cop?” the guy demanded, but he waved at his buddy, who was still trying to get untangled from the airbag enough to turn around and draw a bead on Bucky.

“Cops wish they were as cool as I am,” Bucky said. “Have him pop the trunk.” He hoped it wasn’t too damaged to work, and that whoever was inside it was okay. He really had not thought this through at all. Provided he lived through it, though, it was going to make a great story to tell Steve and Sam.

Slowly, with much cursing and complaining, the other guy managed to find the lever to pop the trunk.

“Hey pal, you okay in there?” Bucky tried to look over the driver’s shoulder to see what was actually in the damn trunk.

“I’ve been better,” said a voice. There was some more cursing and several pained grunts, and then a man unfolded from behind the driver, climbing laboriously out of the car’s trunk.

“If you can walk, there’s a whole ton of zip ties in my cycle’s saddlebag. And then I’ll call the cops?” He shifted the gun again, aiming at the guy’s knee. “Don’t even think about it. I don’t want to kill you, but my moral code’s a little wobbly on the subject of kneecaps.”

The victim looked around and then stumbled his way over to Bucky’s bike, rummaging in the bags and then coming back with the zipties. “Should I even ask why you have-- oh shit, you’re hot.” He froze, staring at Bucky.

Bucky spluttered. That was not at all what he’d expected. “I’m an electrician,” Bucky explained. “And I had a bunch of cable-wraps to do today. Come on, Dude in Distress, let’s zip these fuckers up before someone decides to try me. This is my favorite jacket, I do not want blood on it.”

The guy shook himself back into motion. “Right, right. Sorry.” He walked around behind the driver and started zip-tying the guys’ wrists. “It’s been a long week, and I’m dealing with an adrenaline dump; my filters are pretty much gone.”

Bucky stepped away, once they were both ziptied and on the ground, swearing and cursing, but probably not going anywhere. “Jesus,” he said, then lowered the gun and flicked the safety on. “Not how I intended to spend Friday night-- oh, crap, look at my bike!” Bucky’s voice spiraled up, the victim wasn’t the only guy who was dealing with a sudden flush of hormones. He wobbled back another few steps, shaking from head to toe.

“Whoa, hey, relax, it’s going to be okay,” the victim said. He reached out a tentative hand and gingerly patted Bucky’s shoulder, then again with more confidence when Bucky didn’t immediately throw him off. “I will absolutely make sure it gets fixed. Or replaced. Whatever’s easiest.” He looked around. “What did you do, drive right into the side of the car?”

“Basically, yeah,” Bucky said. He reached for his phone, tapping the Emergency Call button. “You need an ambulance-- what’s your name? I’m Bucky.”

“Tony,” the guy said. He prodded carefully at his face and arm and one leg. “I think it’s all superficial,” he said. “Just... cops.”

“Right, okay,” Bucky said, and when the phone chirped, with the “911, what is the nature of your emergency,” Bucky gave almost no details. “There’s been a… attempted kidnapping and car accident--” he peered at the street signs and gave an address.

“Sir, can you stay on the--” Bucky hung up. They’d both get grilled at the station, or the hospital, if medics decided they needed treatment anyway.

“Tell me you’re not some sort of swag drug dealer or something in a meet up gone bad,” Bucky said. “I’d really like to be the good guy, here.”

“Uh, yeah, I think we can safely say you’re the good guy,” Tony agreed. “I haven’t done drugs since college and I’ve never dealt. I don’t know what these two were after, but it wasn’t, you know, revenge for my nefarious and criminal ways. Hey, can I borrow your phone for a sec?”

Bucky handed it over, looking at the guy. He was dressed in a suit that had probably been nice before he’d been shoved in the trunk of a car, with tousled brown hair and a perfectly shaped beard. If Bucky had to say he had a type, Tony would have checked off a lot of boxes.

Tony dialed the phone. “Pep? What, no, I’m not-- It was fine, but I-- Pep! Code ninety-nine! ...Thank you. Yes. No, I’m fine. Mostly. Well, they jumped me in the garage and stuffed me in the trunk but the hottest guy in New Jersey managed to make them crash the car and-- No, I’m serious. The police are on the way; I need you to scramble the team. Yeah. Yes, really, I’m fine. Yeah. I’ll call after the police. I know, I know, you don’t have to-- Yeah, okay, I know.” He hung up without saying goodbye and handed the phone back to Bucky. “Thanks. My assistant,” he explained. “She likes to be kept up to date on my schedule.”

Bucky snorted. “So, this is, what, like someone’s extra meeting?” He saw light flashing in the distance, the wail of sirens getting closer. Very carefully, he took the gun out of his jacket pocket and put it on the pavement. “This is gonna be a very long evening,” he told Tony. Although given that he had a code for being kidnapped that his secretary knew, he was probably used to it. “Don’t suppose I can buy you a shitty cup of coffee after it’s done, or something?”

Tony looked at Bucky again, startled. “Wait, really? No, don’t answer that, you made the offer; no takebacks. Yes. You can buy me coffee. I’ll buy the doughnuts.”

“Square deal,” Bucky said, giving Tony a wide grin. “If I get out of this with less than a dozen moving violations, shitty coffee is gonna be all I can afford. By the way-- the Morse Code? That was clever. I was following them for like ten miles.”

Tony grinned back, offering Bucky a hand. “Thanks. And... Thanks.”

“I’d say anytime, but I’d rather you not make a habit of getting carjacked.”

“I dunno,” Tony said, giving Bucky an obvious once-over. “It might have been worth it.”