#i also love putting him through unimaginable trauma so i can make him cry

[eggcheeseham-ster]

pov you are damian

[marvelandimagine]

I think some people mad about the arm is not necessarily about the fact that Ayo disabling the arm itself, it's more of the fact that it was not necessary and the fact that Bucky had no idea they can do that. If I were to be honest, I think it was not that necessary because Ayo is well capable of taking him down without having to disarm him and she is definitely not threatened by him. I think what some people find upsetting about that scene is the fact that it kinda comes off as Ayo putting Bucky in a position where it would make him feel like he doesn't have full control of his own body after all. The Wakandans, especially Ayo, T'Challa and Shuri had every right to feel betrayed and upset but the point is they should have told Bucky about how the arm can easily be disabled like that, they didn't know Bucky was going to set Zemo free when they gave him the arm and regardless of the things they have done for him and if they were ones who gave him the arm, they should have at least told him about it, because it's connected to him, it's a part of HIS body. It doesn't matter if it was necessary to disarm him or not, the point is they should have told him about it because apart from the fact that it's his body and that it was a bit insensitive given his history, it's also a point of vulnerability, and the fact that she did it in front of Walker (and possibly Zemo) --- people who can easily turn on Bucky, could easily that to their advantage and attempt to disable it themselves. Just my thoughts on it.

Thank you for sharing your perspective, anon!

I’m going to use this long-ass reply to address this stuff with Ayo and also voice some thoughts I’ve had over the past few weeks seeing people paint Bucky into being this complete soft and harmless human that needs 25-7 protection which I don’t jive with — and this is me, a complete Bucky stan.

Many moons ago, I saw a post that compared 1940s Bucky moving with stealth and a loaded gun on the train to the Winter Soldier doing the same thing, essentially discussing the similarities and debating how much of non-brainwashed Bucky was in the Soldier. And I think the fandom forgets or chooses to neglect the following when painting him as this fragile, peace-loving guy:

Bucky was an incredibly skilled sniper in the United States Army. His job is to eliminate threats in the most efficient way possible, and he’s good at it. HYDRA gets their hands on him and + the serum, this gets magnified. It wasn’t like HYDRA turned him into someone with the ability and mental capacity to kill — that was already there. The brainwashing and torture just carved out the rest of him to leave those honed skills and an amplified ruthlessness with no moral issues, no sense of self to contend with. That ruthlessness is part of Bucky, whether people like it or not.

When Bucky is outside of HYDRA for the first time and hiding in Civil War and gets attacked, he’s so brutal in his actions that Steve Rogers, the man who literally was ready to die to save Bucky and free him when no one else believed in the good in him, intervenes because “Buck, you’re going to kill someone.” Bucky responds that he’s not going to kill anyone, but the fact remains: with or without HYDRA control, Bucky has a strong capacity for violence that hovers on brutality — again, what’s the most efficient way to eliminate or neutralize a threat? Like, I don’t want to kill you, but I’ll knock your ass out with cinder blocks to the chest.

Bucky has a good heart, he’s loyal, he’s smart, he’s caring, he’s the longest-standing POW in history and was turned into a slave for decades, put through unimaginable trauma and torture and horror with no escape. Bucky is also a strong and incredibly skilled super soldier who has a bionic arm, is a trained sniper, is unnervingly precise with knives, and self-describes himself as “semi-stable.” Zemo notes in the bar that “it didn’t take Bucky long to get back into form,” and he’s right because the ruthlessness and skill of the Winter Soldier is a part of him and always has been. We see it when he has his hand around Zemo’s neck and tells him he will kill him, when he rips the glass from his hand and throws it across the room.

And I’m sure the Wakandans know all this about Bucky, this light and his ability for hard-to-stop violence, whether from talking to Steve and Bucky or doing their own homework. And they still choose to help him out of the goodness of their hearts because he’s been put through hell and they believe they have the capacity to help him and it’s the right thing to do — they’re betting more on those positive attributes. And they put a failsafe on his arm, a literal weapon, and chose not to tell him. You know why I think that shows how much they did care about him? Because they could’ve blatantly come out and said “Hey, we don’t trust you,” and hurt him outright, but they didn’t because they’re betting on the light in Bucky to outweigh the dark or any future manipulation. That it’s a worst-case scenario function they hope to never have to use — so they’re prepared if shit hits the fan, and if it doesn’t, Bucky doesn’t have to be hurt feeling like he can’t be trusted. I see no issues here, they’re just being cautious.

Now coming to Ayo, my QUEEN Ayo. From that beautiful, beautiful opening scene, we get to see her support, her reassurance, her belief that Bucky will be able to work through this, even when he doesn’t believe it himself. She watches him fight and struggle and cry, and you can feel the hope in her and how moved she is when she gets to tell him it worked, he did it — he’s free. And she says it not once, but twice. And you can hear not just the comfort, but the PRIDE and warmth in her voice directed to him, who I’m sure she’s watched throughout the whole deprogramming process and gotten to know and is happy to see him work through the pain and come out on the other side.

And then she sees that same individual make a decision in freeing Zemo that she perceives as a “fuck you” not just to her country, but to her, someone who was charged with protecting her king. She could’ve just disarmed Bucky the second they met up, but she doesn’t. She takes the time to explain her side and her feelings, her guilt and her shame, and basically implies that she feels betrayed by Bucky because Wakanda helped him and now he’s doing something that’s hurting her country. And still, she doesn’t attack or just go get Zemo. She gives Bucky the benefit of the doubt and a whole 8-hour American workday to do what he has to do because again, she believes in the best of him. And then that time limit runs up, and he chooses to get in her way.

And that’s the final straw. She’s angry, she’s guilty, she’s frustrated, and she feels betrayed hurt by someone I think she did respect and care about, someone whom she worked with and helped and supported when he was his most vulnerable. Did she “need” to disarm the arm to fight Bucky? Probably not. But is she doing it in the heat of battle and adrenaline and a whole bucket ton of emotions, including what she sees as the White Wolf blatantly disrespecting her country and her as a person and even friend and she just says fuck it, I’m done? You hurt us and me, and I’m going to hurt you back? Oh yeah. And Bucky looks shocked, not because he’s a poor fragile baby and “oh no, my arm, how could you?? my TrAumA”, but in the dual realization of “oh shit, how’d you do that?!” and “oh shit, I think I crossed a line here.” And also, I don’t think a single person in that room would be able to recreate the disabling sequence other than Ayo — it’s way too targeted and specific for someone like Walker to pick it up in the whole three seconds it took.

People need to stop reducing characters to these black and white extremes of soft and hard, of good and bad. Doing so completely devalues and ignores the REALITY of the complexity of being human, and Bucky and Ayo are both great examples of that played by stellar actors who portray that range and depth extremely well. End of the day, my thought is that the failsafe in the arm was justified and people need to stop coming for Ayo based on this ridiculous narrative that Bucky is too traumatized and sensitive and too much of a fave to ever be challenged or he’ll explode into dust. Boy deserves a life of freedom and healing and mental health support, but he’s also still a formidable opponent with the capacity for violence and skillset to kill. People are more than one thing.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk!!

[reannotfound]

“Oh Tommy...What did they do to you?”

CW: symptoms of manipulation, panic attack

inspired by @tamatojam on twitter!

Techno had just finished farming some potatoes and was making his way home. The day had been fairly uneventful, but he was still looking foreward to going home and just relaxing. He also needed to go deposit the 2 totems of undying that he had collected yesterday from the little hunt Dream had sent him on. He had been idly carrying them in his inventory, but he figured he should put them in his ender chest, as soon as possible. 

He couldn’t help but sigh in relief as his home in the snowy biome came into view. It wasn’t anything crazy, definitely nothing compared to some of Phil’s builds, but Techno was proud to call it his own. It was modest, but that was okay. After all, He was in retirement.

As he entered the house, he could have swore that he heard a disc playing? Maybe Phil had left one on? It didn’t sound like one of the discs they owned, though. Plus, it seemed like it was coming from under the ground. That was...interesting. Techno knew they had a basement, but unless the cow down there had learned how to play music, there was someone else down there.

He felt his fight instincts, hardened from years of conflict, kick in. He started to mine down, as quietly as he could. He didn’t know who was in his base, but he had a guess. After all, if there were anyone on the server who would play music, it would be Tommy. He stopped mining for a second, trying to think. Why would Tommy be in his basement in the first place? As far as Techno was concerned, Tommy had wanted nothing to do with him. It was pretty obvious, considering the way he was acting when Techno had visited, all those weeks ago. So, pray tell, what was Tommy doing under his house, playing music?

Techno could feel himself get angry as he finally spotted the ladders going down. Who gave Tommy the right to what, hide under his house? The whole time Techno had been on the server, he had just been used, everyone wanting a bit of his fame or his items, and here was his little brother trying to use his resources again. That settles it. Techo would go down there and tell Tommy off, hard. He was done just being a resource to the other players.

He landed at the bottom of the ladder, and faced Tommy, and couldn’t hold back a little gasp. Tommy looked, well, he looked like shit. His hair had gotten longer, brushing against his shoulders now, and his shirt was even more torn. He was even missing a shoe, for Notch’s sake! Tommy had armour on, chipped armour that he had obviously tried to make himself, and his head was tilted towards the note block, eyes closed as he took in the music. Techno noticed that the floors were yellow, and there was a little room on the side with a log and a bell attached to it. 

“Tommy!” Techno yelled angrily, shaking Tommy out of his trance. Tommy looked at him frantically, eyes wide and shaking. He then stood up, and started taking off the armour, before Techno could say anything. All the angry words he had been thinking of died in his throat as Tommy looked back up at him, eye’s now cold and blank, a far cry from the energetic blue that they used to be.

“Here Techno. These are all the items i’ve gotten since i’ve been here,” Tommy started, voice hoarse and dry. “You can burn it now. I’m really sorry.” 

Techno took a good look at Tommy, really taking him in. Tommy stood with a hunch, as if the weight of the world rested on his shoulders, which it did at one point, Techno thought. He just looked so tired. Techno felt a small, treacherous part of himself sympathize for Tommy, wanting to just wrap him in a hug and get Phil here to help whatever trauma Tommy had been through.

“What?” He replied stupidly, eyes still on Tommy.

“Well, you’re going to burn my items, right? It makes sense, considering i’m living under your house and basically using all your heating. You could even kill me if you’d like, but use a mob, since I’m on my last life.”

His voice was so monotone, rivalling Techno’s own drawl. Techno couldn’t believe it. What the hell had happened to his brother? His amazing, energetic, super annoying little brother. What happened to the small child that Phil had brought home one day, to his and Wilbur’s surprise. What happened to the kid who helped him dye his hair when he went through his identity phase, wanting to look different from his twin. What happened to....the kid who had to fight 2 wars, give up everything for his country, and was constantly shunned from the people he loved. 

“I’m not going to destroy the items, Tommy,” Techno started, trying to step closer to Tommy but stopping immediately when he saw Tommy flinch. “You’ve earned these items yourself. Even if you are living in my ‘basement’” He said with a smirk, using quotations. Tommy didn’t laugh at his joke though, just continued to stare at him blankly, his eyes seemingly in another realm.

“You’re….You’re not going to burn my stuff?” He asked tentatively, as if the thought were unimaginable. Techno could not believe this. Who was this husk of a person where his brother should be?

“I’m not burning it, Tommy. I swear.”

“100%?”

“100%.”

“Pinky promise?”

Techno gave him a small smile, which was hesitantly returned. He slowly made his way over to his brother, making his motions obvious, as to not scare Tommy. Techno wrapped his arms around his brother, choosing to ignore the sniffles coming from the kid in his arms. Tommy was taller then him, but in this moment he felt so small, his head tucked into Techno’s shoulder and gripping his brother like his life depended on it. He rubbed small circles onto Tommy’s back.

“C’mon Tommy, let’s go upstairs. Phil’s going to be home soon, and he’s been perfecting his hot chocolate recipe.” Techno heard a small chuckle, and counted it as a win. He led Tommy upstairs, and if he made plans for an extra bedroom, no one had to know. 

[ah-ga-seven]

Till’ The End of Summer - Chapter 13

>> series masterlist <<

Pairing: Choi Yeonjun x Reader

In a Nutshell: College!AU, Rich Kids, Friends to Lovers, Fuckboy athlete Yeonjun, Overprotective Best friend Soobin, contains all of TXT and other Idol cameos, Omnipresent perspective.

Synopsis: You and Yeonjun are caught up in a cat and mouse game because of unspoken feelings and endless pining for each others’ attention. With the summer break approaching and lots of college parties, will you finally get a chance to explore your feelings for each other; even though the world and Yeonjun’s reputation makes things complicated?

Word count: 11,5K

Genre:  Angst, Fluff.

Warnings: Heavy angst.

A/N: NOT the final chapter.

“Yeonjun…” his name came out like a whisper. You didn’t know what to do or say. You couldn’t fathom the betrayal and hurt that he must be feeling right now. 

“No, there has to be some type of explanation to this. She wouldn’t do this. Why would she? She practically raised me.”  He wasn’t listening, just rambling. Trying to make sense of why he heard her voice on the other end of the line.  

All of you stayed silent, looking at him with concerned and horrified facial expressions.

“Why would she do this. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Hyung…it does kind of explain why you could never find anything. She’s an in-house maid, she could have erased all traces and-”

“No, shut up. She wouldn’t do that.”

“Yeonjun maybe-” Mia tries to talk but Yeonjun cut her off too.

“No, no. Stop. I don’t want to hear it. This woman, she’s the one that sat with me at night so I didn’t have to eat dinner alone, she bathed me, fed me, read me bedtime stories. It can’t be her.” He didn't know who he was trying to convince. Maybe himself?

Yeonjun wasn’t stupid. He knew what it meant when she answered the phone, but he couldn’t accept it. How could he ever trust anyone ever again if this turned out to be true?  

He turned around on his heels so he didn’t have to face you guys, getting lost in thought as he pursed his lips together while running his hand through his hair. He was trying incredibly hard not to cry, until the thought of almost losing you crossed his mind, making a tear escape anyway.

He threw his head back, wiping the single tear from his eye, not wanting to break down in front of all of you. He needed to stay level headed and think rationally. But why was it so god damn hard for him this time when he always managed to pull through?

“She knows how much I love y/n,” he mumbles to no one in particular, but you all heard it and suddenly your heart wrenched in your chest.

He really does love you.

Even though your relationship was far from, well…a relationship. Yeonjun never shied away from expressing his feelings out in the open. Ever since he realized he loved you, he basically never shut up about it to the people around him; even under these circumstances.

You watch him with sad eyes. You didn’t get time to process what happened to you literally minutes ago, but none of it mattered anymore.

You had to set your feelings aside to be there for him.

You’ll heal from it some other time…right?

“Maybe getting to her would cause your breakdown? Meaning you won’t go for the CEO position in the future. You told us she’s the one who told you to come back here, maybe it’s because she didn’t want you to ruin her plans…” Mia says trying to piece things together, and Yeonjun hated to admit it; but it made perfect sense.

Lita knows that if he lost you, he’d completely break down and lose focus. He'd lose the will to succeed because he wouldn't have anyone left to live for.

He’d rather die than have anything happen to you, and maybe that’s dramatic, but it was no lie.  

You got up from your chair and walked over to him. You hold onto his forearm before moving in front of him to announce your presence in case you’d startle him, and when his eyes landed on you his pained facial expression completely disappeared.

It’s like you were a remedy to his broken soul. Every time he laid eyes on you, touched you, or kissed you, he healed a little.

You don’t say anything and just wrap your arms around his waist, pressing your cheek against his chest. His heart was beating fast as he wrapped his arms around you to hug you back. He needed this. He needed you.

All you wanted was for him to be okay. For everything to go back to normal and to take away his pain but all of this was just too fucking crazy to wrap your mind around.

He rested his chin on top of your head and closed his eyes in solace as he sighed. Giving himself a second to breathe before he untangled himself from you without making eye contact.

“I have to call my mom,” he mumbles without emotion.

You look at him a little puzzled, as did Soobin and Mia who gave each other  looks of confusion at his suddenly changed attitude.  

He always does this. He always pushes his emotions aside in the blink of an eye and gets back to business as if it’s nothing.

Yeonjun disappears into your bedroom with his phone as he closes the door behind him. The closed door was enough for all three of you to understand to give him space, and so you did.

With a heavy head and a heavy heart, you sit down at your dinner table again, not feeling Mia and Soobin’s worried eyes on you as you bury your face in your hands. Soobin scooted closer to you and rubbed your back in warming up and down motions to assure you of his presence and Mia, who was sitting across from you, simply grabbed your hand with both of hers.

You sit like that in silence for god knows how long. You were trying to piece things together and process everything that has happened to you and then it hit you.

Every decision Yeonjun has made up until now was to protect you from the unimaginable which somehow became imaginable.  

And suddenly you felt bad for hating him. You hated him for loving you enough to let you go in favor of your own wellbeing. But God knows you did not think of any danger of this caliber.  

It was only months ago that your meaningless crush on Yeonjun got the best of you. If someone from the future would’ve told you that this would be the outcome of pursuing him, you’d probably punch that person in the face for being ridiculous, yet here you are.  

Completely and utterly broken, afraid, tired, and still in love.

And despite everything, you’d still choose to be with Yeonjun if you got to hit the re-do button.

Yeonjun emerged from your bedroom and as you heard the door creak open your head immediately snapped into his direction.

His face held an expression you couldn’t quite read, so you sigh. You bite your lip in anticipation as you watch him pull out a chair of your dining table, waiting for him to sit down and speak up.

“My mom didn’t believe me at first.”

“What? Why?” Mia asks with big eyes.

“Well, can you blame her? She has worked for your family since you were born hyung, this is a big accusation.” Soobin says as he tries to comfort Yeonjun by patting the hair that had grown out in the nape of Yeonjun’s neck. His eyes closed at the physical comfort and he leaned into Soobin’s touch for a split second. The sight was endearing, yet extremely sad.

“She told me she’s letting her people look into it. We can’t contact the police or talk to anyone about what happened. We’ll have to keep a low profile and return to our regular lives so we won’t raise suspicion. My mom will keep me updated and send security to keep us safe in the meantime. They’ll be on guard from tomorrow morning, we won’t even notice they’re here.” Yeonjun explains as if he’s leading a business meeting. All that was missing was a PowerPoint presentation. “Also, that’s evidence,” he says pointing to the cracked phone and the knife in the middle of your dinner table. “We need to put it somewhere safe and make sure no one else touches it.”

The three of you look at him a little dumbfounded.

“What do you mean by her people?” Soobin asks.

“Private detectives,” Yeonjun answers as If it’s nothing.

Private detectives, security, assassins, betrayal. What in the fuck has your life turned into? The things people would do to get to the Choi’s fortunes baffled you, and once again you were at a loss for words.

“Yeonjun, that’s a lot to process,” you say rubbing your forehead as the pain returns. Your hangover never really left you and now it was replaced with a whole new one.

“So, if we have security starting from tomorrow morning…what about tonight?” Soobin asks looking from you to Mia and back to Yeonjun.

“I suggest I stay with y/n. You stay with Mia.” Yeonjun says with a straight face.

You stare at him and make eye contact, and just before you wanted to say something, he interrupts you; knowing what you were going to ask him.

“Please don’t ask me if I’m okay y/n, I’m not.” He sighs as he avoids eye contact, playing with his fingers to distract himself from all of your eyes on him. “I’ll completely shut down if I let myself feel right now. I need to be level headed. I’ll deal with it later.”

Later. It’s always later with him, but when will later be too late?

You all stay quiet for a short while. Your minds going into overdrive and suddenly you felt crippling anxiety wash over you as the memory of that man trying to break your lock comes back to you.

Yay, another trauma to add to the list.

“What if he comes back…” you say in a whisper. Your voice cracked in fear and Yeonjun’s eyes darted to yours. Immediately heartbroken as you pulled your knees up to your chest. Hugging yourself to feel something warmer than the chills running down your spine at the thought of not feeling safe in your own home.

“I’m not leaving you,” Yeonjun says with determination in his eyes.  

You all had school tomorrow, and if you all had to act as if nothing happened tonight, the four of you would need at least some sleep.

After going over the game plan once more paired with a lot of convincing that you’d be alright with just Yeonjun being here, Soobin left with Mia.

Aside from everything, you were glad they left together so they could talk and hash a few things out. Even though you didn’t know what your dynamic with Yeonjun would be like once the two of you were alone together, having more people in your apartment would only make you even more restless than you already were.

The truth is, you had no idea how to act around Yeonjun anymore.  

Too much has happened and too much was weighing down on the both of you to be able to talk about it; so when you closed your front door, you froze before turning around.

He was on your couch, furiously typing to what you assume to be his mother and you know better than to ask about it, so you just awkwardly make your way over to him.

“Uhm…I still have a few of your clothes here. You could shower and change if that makes you feel any better,” you say as you look at him, anxiously waiting for him to look back at you.

He lifted his head from his phone and stared at you, and then at his surroundings as he only now noticed that Mia and Soobin had left already.

His furrowed eyebrows relaxed as he laid eyes on you, and his shoulders fell in relief as he nodded.

“Yes, thank you. I’ll go do that,” he says with a soft smile and an almost too polite tone.

It was as if you were strangers. The tension in the room was noticeable so you averted your attention on the box filled with his stuff next to your front door.

“I-it’s in there.” You stutter as you get up. Silently retrieving it to hand it to him.

You were going to send his stuff back to him, figuring your relationship was basically doomed in the past week.  

He held a neutral facial expression as he took the box from you. His fingers lightly ghosting over yours as he grabbed it from your hold. “You packed my stuff?” he asks as he sets the box aside on your couch.

He wasn’t hurt. In fact, he completely understood. But in some way you wanted him to be hurt.

You wanted him to show you any other emotion than the stoic expression he was holding now.

“I…well, y-yeah.”  you avoid his stare out of insecurity, and he seemed to notice.

“Hey, shhh. I don’t blame you. I get it, really,” he says as he got up from the couch, getting to eye level with you.

He gave you a faint smile as he caressed your cheek with his thumb.  

The Yeonjun you fell in love with would litter your face with kisses to make sure you felt reassured. He’d hug you tightly. Try to make you smile and hold you until you felt better. But the Yeonjun in front of you just turned around, grabbing the box again before he made eye contact once more. “Go to bed, don’t be afraid. I’ll be sleeping on the couch so nothing can happen to you okay?”  

You nod absentmindedly, avoiding his eyes.  

He gave you one last look before he made his way over to your bathroom and locked the door. By doing this he created a distance he hadn’t created before and suddenly you felt hollow.

'Oh my god, he locked the door.' you think to yourself.

He’s distancing himself from you because he’s in pain. But he wouldn’t tell you that with actual words because he didn’t know how.

And if he broke down now, he wouldn’t stop.

You stood there in the exact same spot for at least another 30 seconds. Listening to him turn on the faucet of your shower.

There was nothing you wanted more at the moment than to join him. Massage his sore muscles, and hold him close to be his security blanket but you can’t. And even if you could, you don’t know if you should.

After chugging down a glass of cold water while staring at your front door in paranoia you reluctantly made your way to your bed.  

You were tossing and turning, trying to hear if Yeonjun already finished getting ready for bed.

When you heard the faucet close and the door of your bathroom unlock, something inside of you hoped that he’d change his mind and crawl into your bed with you, but after 5 long and agonizing minutes of waiting, you gave up on the probability of him doing so.

You hated this.

You hated that he was so close, yet so far, and you hated even more that you were the one who created this distance.

The two of you never got to really talk, meaning he was just being respectful and mindful of your wishes. He was trying to give you the space you asked for but after tonight, you weren’t sure if space was what you needed.

You bite your lip, contemplating if your next move was the right one to make but after a full hour of not being able to fall asleep because of your overthinking ass, you figured you had nothing to lose.

You get out of your bed with your duvet wrapped around you like a cape and make your way to your living room silently, dragging your feet on your wooden floor.

He left a light on in your hallway, which you were happy about because you were able to see his sleeping form on your couch in the warm yet dimmed light.

He was lying on his back. His arms were crossed over his chest and his body faced your front door so he’d be able to see if anything were to happen.

As you got closer to him, you study his facial expression.

His lips were slightly parted and he was breathing slowly. He must’ve been completely exhausted to be able to sleep under these circumstances and you purse your lips together, noticing how his face still held a pained expression even in his sleep.

You unwrap your blanket from yourself and pull it over Yeonjun’s sleeping form as carefully as you could and tuck him in a little.

Your initial plan was to cuddle next to him on your couch, but given how peacefully he was sleeping you decide against it.

Instead, you move a piece from his grown out bangs away from his eyes and kiss his forehead before you got up, ready to walk back to your room until you feel a hand taking a firm hold on your wrist.

You look back in shock, feeling like you got caught. It took everything in you to suppress a yelp and when you made eye contact with him, he chuckled lowly.

He wasn’t asleep at all. In fact, he was struggling with the exact same thoughts. 

He opened the covers for you, pulling you down with him without a word and you gladly accepted the invitation.

You nuzzle your face in the crook of his neck as you rest your hand on his chest. He made sure you were completely covered by the blanket as well, and held on to your waist with one hand as the other patted your head in slow, comforting strokes.

Your lashes fluttered closed in solace and he sighed, looking down at you before he kissed your forehead.

The action made you look up at him through your lashes and when you notice his lingering stare you quickly look away, resting your cheek on his chest as you sigh contently.

The cliches were all true. There really is nothing compared to feeling at home in someone’s arms,  and for a moment you forgot about all the trauma and heartbreak.

You kiss his neck, feeling yourself doze off as he kept playing with your hair.

“Yeonjun…” you whisper.

The sound of your voice surprised him. He frowned as he looked down at you, halting his movements.

“Hmm?”

“Just so you know. I never stopped loving you.”  

Being in a lecture hall at 9 AM as if nothing had happened last night was literal torture.

You had to hear Mr. Davis ramble about stuff you already knew about, but he took attendance so there was no way you could skip out on it without failing his class.  

Though you had gotten a good night’s rest, it was hard to concentrate with everything going on and it was even harder to concentrate knowing you were being watched.

Yeonjun’s mom wasn’t playing when she said that you’d all get personal security as quickly as dawn came. They followed you around disguised as regular college kids and kept their distance. In some moments you forgot they were around but when you looked over your shoulder in the lecture hall as you felt a pair of eyes on you; the reality of things hit you again.

The lecture hall was filled with at least 200 students, so no one would bat an eye at their presence. They blended in perfectly, which was both reassuring yet scary because anyone with malicious intent could be doing the exact same thing.

You kept looking around the lecture hall with suspicion, completely zoning out and not paying attention. Mia, who was sitting next to you was dozing off, so you nudged her to keep her awake.

“You didn’t sleep?” you ask as you move a piece of her hair from her line of sight.

She sighed, shaking her head as she fixes her posture.

“No, Soobin and I stayed up all night to talk and once we fell asleep it was 5 AM,” she whispers.

“Did you…work things out?”  

“We talked, we’re nowhere near how it used to be but we agreed on working through this.”

You smiled to yourself. Good. They were both miserable without each other, and even though there were a lot of things left unsaid and unresolved, you were glad things were slowly going back to normal.

“How about you? Did you and Yeonjun talk about it?” She asks looking over her shoulder to see if no one was paying attention to your conversation and you catch yourself doing the same.

“No. I didn’t know how to, and he made it obvious that he didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Well, he’s going to have to sooner than later.”  

You nod in agreement. You basically haven’t solved anything with Mia, but it was nice to have her to talk to about all of this. Sort of? There was still a lot of communicating to be done but first, this whole Lita situation had to be fixed.  

“We never got to have that conversation back in your apartment either,” Mia says as she reminisced back to the moment your lives turned into an action movie.

“We will, soon.”

“Ladies!” your professor's voice bounced off the walls loudly and you immediately knew you were being called out for talking in his class.

“If you want to talk so badly you should’ve just joined the debate team,” he says clicking his tongue, and suddenly everyone's’ eyes were on both you and Mia.  

So much for keeping a low profile...

“Sorry.” You both say in unison.  

Just before Mr Davis was about to continue his lecture he made eye contact with you and stopped in his tracks. “Wait, y/n right?”

You frown in surprise, and so does Mia. “Yes, that’s me.”

“Stay after class, there's something I need to talk to you about.”  

Your eyes dart to Mia’s but she just shrugs, equally as confused as you are. You simply nod at your professors’ request and just like that he continues his class.

For the remaining half hour of the lecture, you were starting to wonder why he’d want to see you after class. When the lecture ended, you waited for most of the students to exit before you approached him on the stage with Mia trailing behind you after you asked her to.

Your invisible security guards waited outside of the door, and luckily Mr. Davis didn’t notice.

“I’m sorry Mia, this is a private matter.”  

Mia gave you a look but you just nodded that it was ok. You were dying to know what was going on by now.

“I’ll see you at lunch,” she says, and you nod as she walked out.

One of the security guards left with her, trailing behind her in the hallway and the other still stood at the entrance of the lecture hall. Watching you and Mr Davis while also skimming his surroundings with his eyes.

You take a deep breath and face your teacher. “You wanted to see me, sir?”

“Yes. Yes, I did.” He walks over to his desk and retrieves a stack of papers from his drawer and you immediately recognize the front page.

It’s the research paper you wrote right before summer. It is the paper you finished writing in the cafeteria when Soobin basically forbid you to date Yeonjun after he came over to your table to flirt with you. The irony of it all was off-putting.

You totally forgot about it. That paper resembled a new beginning in your life somehow, but why would your teacher want to talk to you about it? Was it that bad?

“Did I fail it?” you ask with concern evident in your eyes, but your teacher just gives you a look of confusion and starts laughing at you.

“Fail!? y/n this is the best paper I’ve read in my career as a teacher, that’s 20 whole years.” He says as he sat down on the edge of his desk, giving you a warm smile

Your eyes widen in surprise. “What?”

“Yes, in fact. I sent it to a former colleague at Brown University, and they were so impressed and intrigued by your hypothesis that they want to fund your research.”  He exclaims excitedly.

“I don’t….I don’t think I’m following sir…”  

“They want you to spend a semester there, so you can carry out your research. Your return depends on your work tempo and the development period. They’ll provide a living space and take care of all of your expenses. This is huge. y/n. None of my students have gotten an opportunity like this. This is quite the offer and to be blunt. I think you should take it.”

Your mind goes into overdrive.  

This is huge. Absolutely huge. A prestigious University like Brown had enough faith in your research to invest actual money into it. How did this happen?

“This…is a lot to take in,” you say a little dazed as you rake your hand through your hair.  

“I know, I will send you an email with all of the details. Give it a good thought and let me know by the end of the week. If you decide to go, you’ll leave as soon as possible. I’m so excited for you! You have no idea how big this could be for your future. This could re-write a lot about what we know about neuroscience. It’s groundbreaking.”

He gave you a pat on your shoulder as he started to pack his things into his briefcase. Leaving you with your graded paper in your hand as you look down at it.

You scored a 100.

A hundred? How did this even happen?  

It took you a full minute to collect yourself before you were able to walk out of that lecture hall.

You silently made your way outside, taking a deep breath of fresh air before sitting down on a random bench to think things through, but when you heard the door open behind you with your designated security guard nonchalantly standing beside the door as he tried not to disturb you, you scoff in annoyance.

This had to stop. Quickly. You wanted your life back as soon as possible.

You swallow harshly as you stare at the large document in your hands.

Would you be able to leave everything behind for half a year or longer by yourself? Would you be able to leave your friends? Gyu, Tae, Hyuka, Mia, Soobin…Yeonjun.

You couldn’t imagine leaving him out of all of them. Even though Soobin and yourself haven’t spent more than 1 week apart since birth it wasn’t necessarily him you were worried about.  

It was Yeonjun. What would this mean for your relationship? And what kind of partner would you be if you decided to leave him behind in the midst of the hardest time in his life?

He needed you and you needed him. But you also knew that you couldn’t let an opportunity like this go for the sake of an undefined relationship with someone who caused you more harm than good.

This was a lot to think about but then it hit you that you didn’t even have the freedom to think.

You checked the time on your phone and realized you were running late to the only class you shared with all 6 of them; Advanced English.

It’s a class that mixed both different years and majors, and all of you applied for it during that picnic before summer, just for the hell of it. All of you wanted to share at least one class together and it was the only available option.

“Shit,” you huff under your breath before you quickly grab your things and make a run for it. Your security guard had trouble following you unnoticed like this, so he decided to keep an even larger distance.

As you make it to the classroom, it was already completely filled as you were the last one to arrive. Your shadow stayed outside, sitting down at an individual study booth where he could keep an eye on things, and you couldn’t be more glad that he didn’t follow you inside.

You apologize to your teacher for being late and make your way to a random table, avoiding the one your friends were sitting at.

All of their eyes darted to you in confusion, but Yeonjun and Soobin looked at you a little worriedly.  

“Is she ok? Did she not see us?” Taehyun asks as he cocked his head to the side.

“She had to stay behind in our other class, maybe she’s upset?” Mia explains, shrugging her shoulders.

“Stay behind? Why?” Soobin asks raising his eyebrow as he looks at you with concern.

“I don’t know. Mr. Davis asked me to leave before he spoke to her.”  

Beomgyu sighs. “He’s a dick. I hope he didn’t yell at her. He was my guidance coach last year”

“He’s only a dick to people who don’t do shit in his classes,” Hueningkai states rolling his eyes, which earned him a hard punch to his upper arm from Beomgyu.

Yeonjun watched you closely as Gyu and Hueningkai bickered as background noise. He could tell you were stressed by the way you were tapping your heel on the floor while you keep clicking your pen on your notebook. He sighed, closing his books as he grabbed his stuff.

Since the class was about to start, people were looking at Yeonjun for suddenly switching seats. You had no idea what was going on until you hear the chair next to you being pulled back.

Your eyes meet and your anxiety vanishes. He sat down without a word, taking your hand under the table while intertwining your fingers together in an attempt to calm you down.

He didn’t know what had you so out of it, but he figured being hunted by some unknown man commissioned by his housemaid was enough to have you lose your mind.

A few girls seemed to notice Yeonjun’s sweet actions which made them audibly swoon at his loving gesture, which made Taehyun, Beomgyu and Hueningkai gag a little while Mia and Soobin just gave each other knowing looks.

He rubbed those comforting circles into your hand and kissed your temple quickly before averting his attention back on the board.

Luckily this class was followed by a lengthy and desperately needed break. When your professor dismissed you all earlier than expected, your friends make their way to your table just as quickly as Yeonjun turned to face you fully.

You weren’t sure what to tell them yet, but you knew they had questions as to why you were late.

“Hey? Are you ok? Why did Mr. Davis make you stay back?” Soobin asks as he sat down on the corner of your table.

Beomgyu started to randomly play with the ends of your hair, Mia stood beside Yeonjun and Hyuka and Tae stood beside you waiting with anticipation.

You got up, clearing your throat. “Uhm, he wanted to talk to me about the paper I handed in before summer.”

“Oh no, did you fail?” Beomgyu asks with sad eyes.

You shake your head, pulling the report out of your bag, placing it on the table so all of them could look at it.

“A 100!?” Taehyun gasps.

“Wow. You fucking nerd.” Beomgyu says rolling his eyes. “This is why you’re down? What’s wrong with you.” Hueningkai adds as he gently nudges your shoulder.

Yeonjun looks from the paper to you with big and proud eyes. He gives you a tender smile as he caresses your cheek. “This is incredible. I’m so proud of you,” he speaks with sincerity.

You bite your lip as you nod absentmindedly and force out a smile.  

“Can we go have lunch. I’m starving.” Taehyun says as he walks out of the classroom first, followed by an equally hungry Beomgyu and Hueningkai.

As they left Soobin turns to you. “Ok, so what’s really wrong.”

“Nothing. The whole being followed everywhere thing is just getting to me I guess.”

“I’m so sorry.” Yeonjun says as he avoids eye contact. His tone was somber, and suddenly you feel bad.

“Hey, look at me,” you say as you tug on his chin. “None of this is your fault. You can’t blame yourself for what’s happening. This is out of your control, do you understand?” your tone was stern as you spoke to him. You talked to him as if you were trying to make a child understand something but it was necessary.

You needed him to understand.

He bit his lip, wanting to disagree with you but Soobin jumped in to back you up. “She’s right. Don’t beat yourself up over this. Everything will be okay.”  

You had one more class left for the day but you decided to skip it, not being able to focus on anything else other than the life-changing decision you would have to make soon.  

You desperately needed to consult someone about this and even though things weren’t quite the same between you two, the only person you can confide in about something like this was Mia.

Soobin would be too emotionally involved, and even though Mia is too, she’d be more rational about things.  

She was on your couch, reading the email Mr. Davis sent you and her eyes widened right before she started yelling.

“WHAT!? BROWN! THIS IS HUGE!?”

“I mean don’t get me wrong, our school is great…but it’s no Brown University.”  she gulps with enlarged pupils.

You sigh, relieved to know that she’s excited for you, but then the inevitable question came up.

“How long? Like a few weeks?” she asks with an excited twinkle in her eyes.

You shake your head. “More like a few months…6 to be exact.”  

And suddenly her smile falters. “Oh…”

“Yeah…oh.” You say mimicking her as you sit down next to her.

“I- well…that’s a lot to think about,”  Mia says with a pout. It was finally clicking to her why you were so out of it earlier today.

“I know…” you say as you stare into distance, losing yourself in your thoughts once again.

“What’s holding you back?” Mia asks as she studies you. You look back at her with sad eyes and without a word, she could already guess what you were about to say.

“Yeonjun?” she assumes and you nod in response.

“It just doesn’t seem right to leave him in the midst of all of this.”

“Y/n…don’t you think distance might be exactly what you need from him? If you are meant to be, it’ll be. And if you think of it. Maybe time apart is what you need. This is the perfect opportunity to heal individually and come back as better people…so you can be better together.”

Well. She has a point there.  

“It’s not like I want you gone, fuck no. I’m gonna miss you so much and I’m pretty sure Soobin will fall apart without you but…y/n this is a once in a lifetime type of opportunity.” Mia says as she wraps an arm around you.

You sigh, moving into her hold to hug her. She’s surprised by the action, not thinking you were ready for that yet, you know; given everything that happened, but you desperately needed a hug right now. Mia tightened her hold on you and sighed.

“You’ll be okay. And we’ll all just be a phone call away.”

A single tear escapes from your eye and you let go of her, wiping it away while trying to contain your emotions.

You know you have to go. You really do. But what you don’t know is how to tell Yeonjun.

“Will you help me write the email to Mr. Davis? I’m going to tell him that I’m going.”

Mia gave you a weak smile, wiping away the watery remnants of your tear away from your cheek. She sighed, scooting closer to you.

“Of course.”

“Hyung, pass the ball,” Taehyun says with a raised eyebrow as he watches Yeonjun dribble the ball absentmindedly for over 30 seconds.  

They had practice, and even though Yeonjun wasn’t feeling up to it at all, he knew he had to go. He had to live his life like he normally would and basketball practice was one of those ‘normal’ things.

Yeonjun snapped out of his thoughts and passed the ball to Taehyun before looking over his shoulder to watch one of the security details on the benches.

A lot of people came to watch during practice, so it wouldn’t be noticeable, but Taehyun has the wit of a mind reader, therefore he immediately caught on to who Yeonjun was looking at.

“Who’s that?” Taehyun asks as he passes the ball back to Yeonjun. He swiftly caught it, looking at Taehyun with wide eyes. “Ehm, don’t know. A scout maybe?”  

Taehyun narrowed his eyes at Yeonjun and sighed. “I know you and Soobin are keeping secrets from the rest of us. We’re not dumb hyung, or at least I’m not.”

Yeonjun sighed, rubbing his forehead. “Just trust us. Once all of it is over we’ll tell you.”

“Once what is over?” he tried again.

“Taehyun.” Yeonjun’s voice was strict, it was a clear warning for Taehyun to stop asking questions but the younger one wasn’t quite having it.

He rolled his eyes, dropping the ball as he walked off to a different teammate.  

The last thing Yeonjun wanted was to create a distance between all of them but he had no choice. The fewer people knew, the better it’d be.

Soobin stood in the corner, watching them closely, and approached once Taehyun walked off in annoyance.

He sighed, patting Yeonjun on the shoulder which made Yeonjun jump at the unexpected touch.

“Oh, sorry. It’s just me.” Soobin speaks as he fixes a piece of Yeonjun’s hair, which made him smile at Soobin softly.

“The boys are getting suspicious,” Yeonjun states as he eyes them from afar with his arms crossed.

“Yeah, this morning Beomgyu asked me why we were being secretive,” Soobin says doing the same.

“Beomgyu did?”  

“Yeah…”

“Well then it must be fucking obvious cause he’s oblivious.”  

Soobin chuckled. “Don’t worry about it, they’ll understand once we-” he got cut off by the buzzing of Yeonjun’s phone. Soobin watched Yeonjun carefully as he looked at the caller ID.

“It’s my mom,” Yeonjun says with big eyes.  

Soobin lips form an ‘o’ as he steps closer to check his phone. “Well, pick it up?”  

“Wait, come with me to the dressing rooms,” Yeonjun says as he drags Soobin with him.

Meanwhile, Beomgyu, Taehyun, and Hueningkai were watching them run off together from the bleachers.

Hueningkai’s eyes followed them as he raised his eyebrows in confusion. “First they don’t talk to each other for a week, and now they don’t talk to us.”

“I don’t know what’s going on with them either,” Beomgyu says as he clings onto Taehyuns arm while resting his head on Tae’s shoulder. “I just want all of us to get along like we used to.”

Taehyun pouts. “Then let’s find out what’s going on with them.”

As the boys kept speculating about the situation, Soobin and Yeonjun had locked themselves in a dressing room; making sure that no one was around before Yeonjun answered the phone, putting it on speaker so both of them could hear clearly.  

“Mom?”  

“What took you so long?” His mothers’ voice was clear and calm, yet cold.

“I had to go somewhere secluded, I was in the middle of practice,” he carefully explains. Yeonjun always had the feeling he had to walk on eggshells around his mom, even in a situation like this. “Soobin is also here by the way.”  

“Oh…well. I’m just going to cut to the chase. Lita confessed.”  

Yeonjun’s eyes darted to Soobin’s equally enlarged ones as his heart dropped. He gulped, as did Soobin. He didn’t understand how Yeonjun’s mother could break the news to him in such an insensitive way.  

He knew how much Yeonjun was hurting because of it, and confirmation would only make that worse, so why didn’t Yeonjun’s mother try to at least make an effort to soothe Yeonjun’s already gaping wounds?

“She did?” Yeonjuns eyes instantly started to fill with tears and Soobin noticed. Putting his head on Yeonjun’s shoulder as he quietly rubbed his back in an attempt to comfort him.

Yeonjun couldn’t wrap his mind around the fact that the woman that cared for him when no one else would, was a traitor. A cold-blooded traitor who was just after their money.  

Was it all a hoax? Did she never care for him at all? Or did something happen that made her turn on his family?  

This was the biggest betrayal of his life. If the one person that actually cared for him was able to hurt him like this, then what about everyone else? This ignited a whole new set of trust issues and yet another traumatic experience to talk about with his therapist and honestly, he didn’t know if he could take it anymore.

“She admitted to wanting to overthrow the company. But she did not admit to being behind the attempted assault to y/n. And since no one got hurt paired with the fact that there is no real evidence, we can’t incarcerate her for that.”

“What!?” Yeonjun exclaims in disbelief. “You’re telling me that we can’t press charges against Lita for trying to hurt y/n?”  

“I’m afraid not…you’re going to have to fly out again to testify as a witness. I don’t want to bother y/n too much so I’ll just have my people call her for questioning, however since you are the sole heir to Choi Enterprises, I’m going to need you there in court.” His mother states as if it’s nothing.

Yeonjun’s mind was spinning. He had too many questions and too little brain capacity to be able to ask all of them at once. He swallowed harshly as Soobin motioned to Yeonjun to give him the phone, and without a thought, he did.

Soobin cleared his throat before speaking, hoping not to be out of line by doing so, but he could tell Yeonjun was having a hard time to collect his thoughts.

“Hello mam, this is Soobin. Uhm, I hope it’s ok.”

“Oh, hi. Yes, of course. Proceed.”

Soobin smacked his lips nervously, instantly intimidated by the sound of her voice yet he decided to speak anyway.

“How do we know for sure if Lita’s minions will stand down now that she got caught? And is she in jail now? I’m not quite sure if I get it. And do we need the security guards? It’s pretty bothersome and distracting to all of us…” Soobin says as he watches Yeonjun stare into nothingness.

He sighed awaiting a response. Soobin laced his fingers with Yeonjun’s to calm him down once more and it seemed to work as Yeonjun’s attention averted back to the conversation at hand.

“We won’t know for sure. But it’d be really stupid of her to try anything now that we’ve caught her. The security details will stay with you all until this is over with, that’s not up for discussion. And yes. Lita will rot in jail. I’ll make sure of it.”

Shivers ran down Soobin’s spine at the scary tone of Yeonjun’s mother. She was beyond reasoning with but could he blame her? A trusted family employee of over 20 years has made the ultimate betrayal. Soobin couldn’t imagine the hurt and anger she must be feeling right now, so he didn’t dare to go against her about the security guard situation.

Yeonjun’s lower lip trembled as he silently took the phone from Soobin again.

“Mom…” his voice was shaky. He sounded lost and scared, like a child calling out for his mother in distress.  

His mother immediately softened at the sound of his voice. Her heart hurting for him as the realization hit her. She had been in overdrive. Lacking sleep and working day and night to make sure Yeonjun and his friends were safe, but she didn’t stop to think about how he’d be feeling in the midst of all of this.

Her mind briefly flashed back to when she confronted Lita in her home office, surrounded by her security and private detectives. She reminisced to the horror on Lita’s face after getting caught for the unforgivable.  

She was so busy with making sure that Lita wouldn’t be a threat anymore, that she completely disregarded the fact that Yeonjun might be having the hardest time of them all.

Even though Lita was a trusted employee, their relationship didn’t go further than business, but Yeonjun was raised by her, and she completely forgot about that.

“I can’t take this…” a tear escapes Yeonjun’s eye. And another one, and another one. Wiping them away was no use as they kept coming, so he just let them fall freely. He silently sobbed while Soobin put Yeonjuns head on his shoulder, letting him weep like a baby as he still held on to Yeonjun’s hand.

His mother fell silent, unable to comfort her son because she didn’t know how.

“I’m sorry Yeonjun,” she says in almost a whisper. “I’m sorry you have to feel this type of pain. I will do everything I can to help you okay? I promise. Once the situation is dealt with I will get you the best team of people to help you with your troubles, I won’t mess up this time. I promise I’ll be there for you.”

Yeonjun sniffed, trying to collect himself to respond but he couldn’t. Promises are just words. Words that have meant nothing in his life.

“I don’t need a team of people mom, I need you,” his voice cracked. “I need this pain to stop. I just need my mother, not a lawyer or another therapist. I just need you. I need a parent.”

Soobin’s heart wrenched in his chest at the plea’s Yeonjun was making to his mother. He couldn’t imagine having this type of relationship with his own parents.

In the moment Soobin made a pledge with himself that no matter how much Yeonjun seems to fuck up, he won’t ever leave him behind. He will make sure to be the rock Yeonjun needs, regardless of his mother actually trying or not.

Taehyun, Beomgyu, and Hueningkai had their ears pressed against the door throughout the whole thing. As silence engulfed the space, the three of them looked at each other with enlarged pupils as shock took over their faces.

They put two and two together individually. Looking at each other with disheartened expressions.

“Oh no…” Taehyun says in a whisper.

You didn’t know how to tell them.  

You didn’t know how to tell Yeonjun or Soobin individually so you just invited all of the boys over at once to get it over with.  

It was nighttime by now and you figured you’d cook them all dinner given the fact that food always lures them to your place. Hopefully, the sweet taste of your homemade brownies would subside the bitter news you had to break to them.

Mia helped with everything, the table was fully decked out with all sorts of dishes and it was obvious you were overcompensating for something but they had no clue yet.

When they got to your apartment, Yeonjun and Soobin were missing from the group which made you panic a little.  

“Damn what’s the occasion?” Beomgyu asks as his mouth waters, looking at the absolute feast you cooked up for them.

“Uhm, well. I have some news, but I have to wait for Yeonjun and Soobin to tell you guys.”

Mia awkwardly took place at the table between Hueningkai and Taehyun and Tae just stared at you. “Please tell me you’re not pregnant.”

“NO! Oh my god. Tae. No.” you give him a horrified look and pat your stomach.

“Thank god, I’m too young to be an uncle.” Hueningkai sighs in relief as he slouched in his seat.

“Yeah, when you said you were cooking us dinner cause you had an announcement to make I really thought Yeonjun finally knocked someone up.” Beomgyu snickers as he shoved a dumpling in his mouth.

You roll your eyes and look at the two empty seats. “Do you know where they are?”  

Your question triggered a silence so awkward, you’ve never experienced anything like it in your friend group.

Taehyun looked at Beomgyu, and Beomgyu looked at Hueningkai; while Hueningkai looked to Taehyun to take the lead.

“I-uhh…” Tae starts, but he stopped himself. He didn’t know how much you both knew of the situation so he decided against speaking about it.  

“They had some errands to run. I’m sure they’ll be here soon.”  

Beomgyu visibly relaxed in his seat at Tae made up an alibi for the boys’ whereabouts, but Mia – being the hyper-aware one – narrowed her eyes at them.  

The boys collectively agreed on pretending they didn’t know what was going on until either Yeonjun or Soobin would tell them themselves. They wanted to give them; and especially Yeonjun, time to process and didn’t want to push him into explaining the situation to them if he wasn’t ready for it.  

Also, they felt bad for eavesdropping and weren’t sure how to start the conversation even if they wanted to.

The twisting of your lock snaps you out of the moment and suddenly fear takes over your entire body. The trauma triggered by Lita’s minion trying to break your lock last night was the cause of your shocked Pikachu face, but when you see Soobin and Yeonjun in your door opening you relax instantly.

You gave Soobin a key, how could you forget.

“Oh, I didn’t expect you guys here so soon.” Hueningkai comments, which made Gyu and Tae look at him with threatening eyes.

“Where else would we be?” Soobin asks as he walks towards the table. He greeted you with a kiss on your head, and Mia with a kiss on her cheek before he sat down next to you.

The distance between Mia and Soobin was still odd, he’d normally kiss her lips but he played it off well as he slid his chair towards the table while eyeing the food closely.

Yeonjun on the other hand; greeted you with a soft smile while simply petting your head before he sat down on the opposite side of Soobin.  

The atmosphere was odd. Yeonjun was uncharacteristically quiet but you figured it was because of everything that was going on and honestly you couldn’t blame him. His head must be the fullest out of all of you, so you made sure to keep the conversation light and airy.

Your funny group dynamic slowly returned, and before you knew it, it was already time for dessert.  

“I’ll help you.” Yeonjun offered as he cleared the table.

You were in your kitchen, taking a deep breath as you were cutting up the last brownie, prettily putting it on a plate with some red berries on the side.  

As Yeonjun approached with the dishes, he watched you carefully. He put the dirty plates in the sink before he nudged your shoulder softly to get your attention, pulling you out of your concentration of perfectly assembling your masterpiece.

You look up, and you’re met with his beautiful soft smile. His eyes were glistening and he sighed contently. “You went all out,” he comments as he watches you do your thing. “Yeah, maybe I should deliver one to my designated security guard in the parking lot,” you joke under your breath and even though your sense of humor was pretty dark given the situation, he seemed to appreciate it as he giggled. Your heart did a thing at the sound. You missed it. You missed hearing his loud laugh. You missed seeing him happy.

“There’s actually new information I want to share with you and Mia, but we’ll have to wait until the boys leave.”

You look at him shortly before you avert your gaze back on the task at hand. You really didn’t know if the timing was right to talk about your exchange to Brown University but given the fact that you were leaving so soon, you also knew that you didn’t have much of a choice.

Suddenly you felt guilty again for leaving in the midst of all of this, but he’d understand? Right?  

You nod absentmindedly and tell him to sit down with the others so you could start decking the table and once everyone had a plate, you stood at the edge of your dinner table looking at them nervously.

They all give you puzzled looks, while Mia gave you a reassuring nod.

“So…they’re Brownies.”

Soobin chuckled, raising his eyebrow. “I can see that.”

“No well…they’re…brownies for…Brown University,” you explain nervously.

“Huh?” Beomgyu breaks the silence, his eyes darting from the plate to you.

All eyes were on you by now, expectantly waiting for you to continue.

“Remember that paper from this morning?”

“The one you got a 100 on?” Hueningkai asks.

“Yes, well. Uhm. Mr Davis sort of, might’ve sent it to a representative at Brown…and they want to like…fund my research or whatever,” you say avoiding eye contact as you fidget with the sleeves of your blouse.

“Brown!? Dude. That’s…insane!” Taehyun exclaims enthusiastically.  

“God, and here I thought you really were pregnant.” Beomgyu huffs. “But this is amazing!”

“Yes, congratulations sis, you really deserved it!” Hueningkai says with a bright smile.  

You look at them with an elated facial expression, happy that they’re happy for you. But then you turn your head and look at Soobin who has literal tears in his eyes.

“…Soobin?” you lean in to see if your eyes were deceiving you but they weren't. His eyes really were teary.

“Hyung are those tears?” Taehyun asks wide-eyed.

He sniffed, wiping his eyes as he got up from the chair to trap you into a tight hug. “I’m just really proud of you,” he mumbles.  

As you’re trapped in his bear-hug, your nerves fade. “Finally some good news,” he whispers into your ear. And you close your eyes at the solace of this peaceful moment.

Yes, it really is good news. And only now you realize just how amazing it is that you’ve accomplished this all on your own. You finally get to be happy about it now that you’ve told them.

When he let go, you finally make eye contact with Yeonjun and he had an equally proud smile on his face to match Soobin’s.

“This is amazing, y/n. You earned it.” he says with glistening pupils and your heart raced at his sweet remark.

“So, how long will you be gone for? Like a week? Two weeks?” Beomgyu asks as he chews on the fudgy brownie you made them.

Oh…shit. You didn’t tell them how long you’d be gone for.

You shoot Mia a panicked look but her facial expression only matched yours.

“Uhm…”  

All eyes were on you again. They were full of hope, expectation, and pride; and for some reason, you knew you were going to ruin the moment.

“It’s…about a semester-long,” you admit, and all of their facial expressions fall at the same time.

“That’s…six months.” Soobin realizes. It hit him that his best friend; who he’s never been more than a week without, will leave his side for half a year for the first time in his life.

“Damn…that’s a long time…” Taehyun says looking from you to Yeonjun with concern.

You didn’t dare look at him, but you knew that all of them were.

Mia bit her lip as she looked at how sad Soobin had gotten, but her gaze averted to Yeonjun and her look changed from sadness to confusion.

Yeonjun was…smiling.

Your eyes found his as he smiled at you fondly. He’s dying inside, but of course, he wouldn’t tell you that. There’s no way in hell he’d ruin this moment for you.

He had to man up and show his best fake smile because he’d never guilt trip you into not going. The opportunity was too big to let go, and honestly. You being far, very far away from this whole mess kind of eased his mind.  

You’d be safe.  

Without him around.

“What?” he asks trying to sound genuinely confused as to why everyone was looking at him.

“Aren’t you…upset?” Mia asks carefully, which made Yeonjun look at her briefly before looking at everyone’s equally worried facial expressions, including yours.

You expected every possible reaction, except this one, and it lowkey scared you.  

“How could I be upset?” he says with an eye-smile as he breaks off a piece of the brownie, shoving it into his mouth while giving all of you innocent puppy-eyes.

Someone get this man an Oscar.  

You didn’t know if you should be happy or sad that he reacted the way he did. You’d rather have him yell at you for leaving him, that’d be a lot less unnerving than the scarily calm and collected man sitting in front of you right now.

“Hyung, she’s leaving for half a year.” Beomgyu tries to make this clearer, thinking that Yeonjun didn’t understand, but he did, fully.

“I know. Look, I will obviously miss y/n. But what good will it do if I let my emotions get the best of me right now? This is supposed to be a joyful moment. She’s worked for this her whole life guys. Let’s be proud and happy for her. It’s almost like you all want me to freak out?”

Every single one of you was absolutely dumbfounded by his comment. It was mature of him, that’s for sure, but you expected at least some emotion other than this capitalist smile he had on his face.

“Let’s give them some time alone,” Soobin says as he got up. “I will talk to you later.” He states as he passes by you, squeezing your hand in reassurance.  

Your pupils dart from him to Mia and the rest of the boys in panic. Oh no, please don’t leave.

Yeonjun still sat at your dinner table like a robot while the rest of them quickly thanked you for dinner as they left your place, taking their brownies with them.

They all followed Soobin obediently and after Mia whispered in your ear to call her if anything popped off, she left. And you were all alone with Yeonjun.

You turn around on your heels. Making your way to your dinner table again as your heart thumped in your chest.

You carefully approach him, pulling out a chair to sit beside him and you just silently take his hand.

He refused to make eye contact with you, and suddenly you felt like the biggest dick in the universe.

“Please don’t make me say it,” he says.

“Say what?” you squeeze his hand, waiting for him to respond.

“Please don’t make me tell you that I want you to stay, because I do. But I could never, ever be that selfish.”

“Yeonjun….I’m the selfish one.”

His eyes shot up to look at yours. His pupils were dilated, alarmed, and startled. 

“No, you’re not. You’re going. End of story, and when you come back, I’m going to love you just as much, maybe even more than when you left.”

Your eyes start to fill with tears, and he’s quick to notice as he pulled you into his lap, cradling you like a baby.

“Hey, shhh. Don’t cry.” his voice was laced with sadness as he watched you cry. He hated the sight more than anything and tried to wipe your tears with his thumbs.

“Yeonjun, I don’t want to abandon you.” You sniff into his neck as all the tension and nerves of making this life-altering decision get to you.

It’s not like you weren’t coming back, but 6 months is a long time. You weren’t the same person you were 2 months ago, let alone 6.

“You’re not, don’t say that.”

“I don’t want you to hate me,” you mumble as you sniff.

“I could never hate you y/n. Ever.” He assured you of his true feelings as he rubbed your back, trying to soothe your pain as you cried into the crook of his neck.

His cold fingers caressed your cheek, and he closed his eyes for a second. Listening to you cry softly in silence as he contemplated on what to say.

“This is supposed to be a good thing baby…why are you crying.”  

Baby. He hasn’t called you that in a while.

"Because I don't want to leave you."

He was trying his hardest to keep it together, but to be honest he was one push away from a mental breakdown.

He needed you, now more than ever. But Yeonjun would never tell you that, cause you’d stay for him, and he knew it.

“Maybe space is what we need,” he says with a heavy heart, and your tears immediately stopped.

You look up at him. What did he just say to you?

He sighed, tracing his fingers over your lips before tugging at your chin to pull you closer. He placed his lips on yours and kissed you softly, passionately, and lovingly before he pulls away to rest his forehead against yours.

“Let’s be real y/n. Being with me has only complicated things. Maybe we can use these 6 months and try to grow separately before we can be great together…”

Mia said the exact same thing, but if he’s saying what you think he’s saying; then you honestly didn’t want to hear it.

Long-distance would be rough, but it’d be better than not having him at all.

You wipe your tears away with your sleeve and sniff once again, trying to collect yourself before you start to speak again.

“You want to end whatever it is that we have?”

“No…and yes…”

“Why…” you sounded absolutely broken as your voice cracked, it made his heart hurt for you so he sighed loudly. Looking you in the eye with desperation.

“Because I can’t love you the way you deserve to be loved y/n. At least not now. I'm...fucked up.”

You look at him with glassy eyes, shocked to hear his confession. You leaving was just the final straw. He has tried to do this before when he planned to stay back home and work for Choi Enterprises, but this was the first time he said it. With actual words.

“Why? What changed. I thought that-”

“Lita confessed.” He interrupts you before you could make any assumptions yourself.  

“W-what?”

“She confessed, I have to leave for home next Wednesday to testify against her in court. Everything’s going so fucking fast…”

“Next Wednesday? I also leave next Wednesday...” you mumble softly.

His eyes grew big. “You’re leaving that soon?”

You nod, biting your lip, and notice how Yeonjun had trouble putting his thoughts into words so you encourage him by caressing his cheek, nodding at him to let him know that it was ok to say whatever was on his mind; even if it didn’t make sense.

He rubbed his temple in agony before avoiding your piercing gaze as he spoke. “I thought I had enough to deal with when my dad died, but her confessing that she was capable of doing all the things she’s done felt even worse than my fathers’ death. This time it feels like I lost a real parent y/n. I don’t’ know how to move on from this…”

“And this is exactly why I’m not leaving,” you say getting up in a hurry as you frantically start looking for your phone.

He watched you a little startled at your sudden changed demeanor and got on his feet just as quick.

“Hey, hey, hey.” He grabbed your wrists, making you look at him. “What are you doing?”

“Finding my phone, I’m calling Mr. Davis. I’m canceling the whole thing.”

“No, you’re not.” Yeonjun’s tone was serious.

“You are going. You are going to take this once in a lifetime opportunity, and change history with your research do you hear me? You could help so many people with this. It’s your passion. Your dream. And you’re telling me you’re ready to drop all of that…because of me?”

You didn’t know what else to do other than nod. Yes. You were ready to drop it all for him, but Yeonjun just shook his head in disbelief.

“No, y/n. I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For saying what I’m about to say, but you’re not going to ruin your life like this. I won’t drag you down with me. I won’t ever let that happen.”

“So what are you saying?” you looked at him with teary eyes, your pupils darting back and forth before he let go of you.

‘I’m saying that…we need to hit pause on whatever this is.” He couldn’t believe he said this.

He really didn’t. And he felt instant regret as he watched your face crumble.

He wasn’t the only one with abandonment issues, because so were you.

He promised your dad that he’d never break your heart, yet here he was. In your living room, looking at you fall apart, and he was the cause of it all.

“I’m sorry y/n. I love you. I really do. That’s why I’m doing this,” he says as he cups your face in his hands. Tears were also starting to fall from his eyes by now, and you just stood there in his hold. Completely lost and frozen.

“Please don’t hate me,” he whispered as he buried his face in your hair to muffle his soft sobs. He wrapped his arms around you tightly, holding on to you one more time before he couldn’t anymore. He took the chance and kissed you once more. You let his lips ghost over yours before you pull away.

“I could never hate you Yeonjun.”  

Before you knew it, Wednesday rolled around.

It felt like only yesterday when you told your friends that you were leaving, and today you actually were.

Soobin helped you with your suitcase as the rest of them trailed behind you with long faces.  

They were all there to send you off, except for Yeonjun. He had to leave early to catch his flight back home to testify against Lita in court, and honestly, you were glad he wasn't here right now. Seeing him again after your tearful goodbye was something you weren’t ready for.

The timing of things was just incredibly wrong, and you wished you were able to support him throughout the whole legal process and emotional storm he had to go through back home but you couldn’t, and you both already made peace with it.

You were a single woman again. Leaving to live a different life at a new school.

You both decided it’d be for the better like this since both of you were going to walk different life paths from now on, at least for the next six months. It wasn’t certain if things would go back to normal upon your return in the future and that uncertainty is what hurt you the most.

With a heavy heart, you turn around to face your friends when you arrive at the check-in desk, and without a word, a big group hug is formed.

“We’ll miss you,” Hueningkai mumbles into the hug.

“Even I will.” Taehyun sighs.

You let go of them with a smile, knowing you have to put on a brave face for this to not turn into yet another emotional tear-fest.

“I’ll be back before you know it. And it’s not like I’m dying guys. There’s this thing called the internet. We can still see and talk to each other.” You chuckle as you nudge Beomgyu who was pouting at you and you wrap an arm around Taehyun who was standing next to you.

You avert your gaze from the boys and make eye contact with Soobin who wasn’t the best at concealing his emotions.

He pouted as he sniffed, wiping his eye.  

Mia chuckled. “Are you crying AGAIN?”  

“No. I have something in my eye.”

“Yes. I can see it.” Beomgyu says as he leans forward to look into Soobin’s eyes dramatically. “It’s a dust particle called little bitch.”

“Shut up.” Soobin huffs as he shoves the younger one away, and all of you burst into laughter.

Thank god for that moment of laughter, it took the edge off and made everything a lot less emo.  

You had a long talk with Soobin the night before when he helped you pack your stuff. The hard part was over with, though you could tell he was still struggling to let you go. But he knew that it was all for the greater good.  

You sighed as you walked up to him for a tight hug, and as you let go of each other you give Mia a smirk “Look after him for me will ya.”

“You know I will.” She smiles at you as she pulls you in for a hug as well, and suddenly it got really warm again as the boys wrapped themselves into the hug once more.

You giggle, looking at them one last time before you take a hold of your suitcase.

The check-in for your flight had started, and you were called to move in line.

“Bye guys.”  

You wave at each other as the distance became bigger and bigger, and when they were completely out of sight you’re able to breathe again.

You bite your lip, trying to suppress the urge to cry and run back to them. Run back to your safety net of the people you loved and cared for the most, but you knew you had to do this.

You were excited to start a new adventure, but you wished you didn’t have to sacrifice so much to be able to do it.

Your phone buzzed in your pocket as you sat at your gate, lost in thought while you waited to board the airplane.

Your eyes widen when you saw his name pop up in your notifications and quickly open your messenger app.

[Yeonjun, 10.43 AM]: Good luck on your new journey and have a safe flight. I wish I could be there to send you off but just know I’m thinking of you. Always.  

[Yeonjun, 10.44 AM]: Take care y/n. I love you.

Chapter 14 - The Finale  

[rreyie]

snk/aot characters when being comforted 🥺

warnings: suggested violence/trauma, some “no regrets” spoilers, anime spoilers

characters: levi, eren, armin, reiner

a/n: yes i know i’m just doing the guys again but if it’s requested i’ll do the girls too!! this is all mainly just a lot of fluff lol. if there’s any other characters y’all want me to do then feel free to ask for the ask box is OPEN!

⚔️ LEVI ACKERMAN ⚔️

out of everyone on this list, levi needs a good old comforting the most.

he’s watched his friends and commanders die, and he doesn’t get too close to anyone in fear of him getting attached and then that person dying on him

you realize what he’s been through after hange gives you a quick talk on why levi is like how he is

you feel unimaginable sorrow for this poor man... he’s watched everyone he loved die, it only makes sense for him to act so shut out from the world

you walk right up to his office, and burst in the door without even asking

“hey brat, don’t you know how to knock-“

he’s cut off by you wrapping him in a giant bear hug, the first one he’s felt in decades.

he is disgusted at first, confused on what was happening, and attempted to wiggle away. but he soon realized that you weren’t letting go.

he started to like the unfamiliar sensation of the hug you had completely encased him in. he hugged you back, gently placing his hands on your back.

“oi... what’s up with this, y/n” he asked, and you attempted to pull away from the hug he had trapped you in

but NO you couldn’t move. this man would not let you go

“it’s a way of saying...i’m here to stay. and i’m not going to leave you. i’ll stay alive for you.”

you feel a bit of wetness on the crook of your neck, which is where levi rested his head on. you realized he had shed a tear.

“levi are you crying? are you ok-“ “NO NO IM N-NOT IM FINE”

his voice started to crack, and his tear turned into many, and he started to quietly sob.

you directed him to the small velvet sofa in his office, and let him lay on your lap and just let it all out :(

he BEGGED you not to tell anyone that he shed a couple tears

that day that you hugged him is still thought about by him... you even turned him into a cuddle addict

⚔️ EREN YEAGER ⚔️

he’s touch starved.

he’s too busy putting up his “manly” facade to even think about his own emotions

he wants to be there for you and the rest of the cadets, sometimes putting himself in physical danger so you could live

you were laying with him on his bed, looking through an old photo album you found in the basement, littered with faded pictures of grisha and zeke when they were younger

“i can’t believe that my father hid this from me my whole life”, he said. “why would he do this? why couldn’t he just let the world know?”

his anger towards his father was bitter, stronger now than ever

“and why... why did all this bad stuff have to happen to me?! i saw everyone die! i couldn’t do anything about it like the weak bastard i am!”

you saw a small tear splatter into a photo with diane, grisha and zeke

“eren, are you okay?” “yeah... just a little choked up but don’t worry about me!”

his cheeks began to look flushed, his eyes glistening

you knew eren didn’t really like physical contact that much because he wasn’t used to it, but your instinct to comfort him became too strong

you wrapped him in a tender hug, his eyes wide with shock.

he started to sob, his cries growing louder by the minute

he held you tighter than you held him, he really just wanted someone to hang on to

even though you two weren’t dating at the time, you pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead, the kiss reminding eren of his mother all too much

his sobs were now the equivalent of how hard he cried when he saw hans get eaten alive

“hey...” you say with a soft tone in your voice, and you guide erens head to meet yours, your eyes making contact.

“you’re safe now, eren. i’m holding you, and i won’t let anything hurt you. you can let all the anger out now.”

he looked at you, his green eyes vibrant with distress. his face was red, multiple tears dripping down his face.

“and don’t ever, ever say that you’re weak again. you’re one of the strongest guys i’ve ever met. you’ve discovered a key to humanity’s victory! you’re a leading part in our battle!”

eren managed to grin a little bit, pulling you back in for a hug. you kiss his forehead again, eren greatful for your touch. he even managed to kiss you on your cheek, which made you blush at the sight :)

⚔️ ARMIN ARLERT ⚔️

okay... even though armin didn’t have a really bad childhood, the events he lived through with working with the scouts and cadets really put a toll on him

he’s a nervous wreck now

it was a night you two were sharing the same bed where you woke up to hear armin screaming bloody murder

you quickly turn over to check on the blonde boy, him shaking frantically, his cries loud.

“armin! are you okay? did anyone hurt you?”

he’s trembling so much he can’t even get a word out of his mouth

“armin you’re fine... see? it’s just me, you and this big ol bed of ours!”

armin finally managed to make sense of his words

“y-you’re alive? after being e-eaten by a titan?”

“armin what titan?” “the one you were just crushed by?”

you were puzzled and confused. “you had a bad dream, love. i’m alive and okay.”

his breathing starts to slow down and he just... wraps you in a giant hug, a gentle one tho

you hug him back, feeling his sobs quiet down and his tears start to dry

for the rest of the night, you two cuddle up and spoon, and no matter how hard you try to get up in the morning, he will NOT let you go

⚔️ REINER BRAUN ⚔️

poor guy has been through so much... between losing his best friends, seeing his home getting burned down by the eldians, trying to off himself, he’s been through the works

similar to eren hes so busy putting up that tough guy face that he abandons his own needs

you find him in his room during that one scene where he’s got a rifle in his mouth ready to end it all

“hey reiner pieck said that she needs you to sign these- uh what are you doing?”

he slowly turns to you, his eyes dull, hair messy, and slowly takes out the rifle and puts it on the ground

“i’m so done with this world, everything we’ve done isn’t getting us anywhere. i’m just holding you all back. i’ll make use of myself by making myself into titan fodder...”

you drop that important stack of papers at your feet and rush to hug this drained man

his face turns red, not knowing what exactly to do in this moment

he hugs you back extremely tightly- he’s like a giant teddy bear that craves affection

you press a little kiss to his cheek and if the hug didn’t make him red already...

“reiner, you have never been a burden to us and never will be. we need you to succeed...”

from this day on he expects a lot more hugs from you so BE PREPARED

maybe even the occasional kiss ;)

these were kind of sad to write but also v cute in some areas... anyway the ask box is open to leave suggestions for more posts!! love you all!!

[lizacstuff]

I don't understand when Liz says, "I just needed a moment"? Is she saying she wanted to escape doing science so she can be alone instead of spending time with the person she tried to hard to bring back because she was so heartbroken? Wouldn't you want to spend more time with the person you thought you lost? Most people say they wish they had more time with the people they loved. I get she doesn't need to be around him 24/7 but does she mean she was too obsessed?

I think Liz explains it pretty well and I don’t think it had anything to do with not wanting to spend time with Max. “I needed to take just one moment to remember where I end and where you begin.” Liz had spent every waking minute trying to find a way to save Max, she was relentless, single-minded, undeterable. And she did it. She did the impossible, but in the process everything about her life became about Max, her entire existence became defined by her love for him. 

Which is kind of awesome thing for us shippers, because you know ultimate, epic, giant love, but it’s also not sustainable for an actual woman so in this case the writers decided to mine it for Liz’s character arc.  

Who is she outside of this relationship? That is a valid question for her to ask, and it doesn’t affect or negate any of her love for Max.  She gets to be a person too, and have her own goals and aspirations. Her needing/wanting to do that wasn’t the problem. 

We see that she is being judged by people throughout the season for her life choices. Her mother, Charlie, ICE agent, Diego, but mostly she judges herself. She’s embarrassed that instead of being a great scientist, she’s slinging burgers.  

Liz was a completely independent woman before she found Max again. She was constantly moving, never felt connected to anyone including her fiance (I just couldn’t connect) where her work was the only thing that mattered. She ran like hell from people, places, even jobs, anything that might have served as any sort of anchor. Think about it... what kind of person just ghosts their fiance? Disappears without a word? That is just not done. Clearly she wasn’t in love with Diego, but didn’t she like him enough to at least give him the courtesy of a conversation? That is unimaginably selfish. The person that would take that extreme of an action, is not someone who is going to faultlessly slip into a committed relationship. Yes, Max is different, Max is her destiny, she is in love with Max, but that swing from unable to commit to anything to completely committed was B.I.G.

To be clear, I’m not really defending the writing here, because I think a lot of it is manufactured and it happened way too fast.  Given 22 episodes the transition from “yippee Max is alive” to needing to find herself would have probably felt a lot more organic.  As it stood it felt like she enjoyed one night with him and then threw herself into unethical science, neglecting time with him in the process. As an audience we needed more time of Liz just happy to have Max back and basking it, before she’s got restless and reckless.  

At the end of the day, I think we can make sense of Liz’s actions in light of what she went through. Liz got put through the emotional RINGER this season.  In how many scenes was Liz crying? Good grief, the poor thing. First it’s the grief over Max, then it’s an herculean effort to bring him back, the stress and strain of failure, the knowledge that Max was trying to pull the plug, then when he’s back he doesn’t remember her? Why only her? That must have hurt something fierce. Even after the epic, “I’m not better off without you, I’m not whole without you” speech, that had to be devastating. Especially once the euphoria of being reunited wore off. But once Max was back they never took a second to examine how it might affect her. Then she dealt with her worries over his health, all while he wouldn’t heed her warnings. None of that trauma was dealt with. Also Liz was clearly still upset about Max making the decision in the first place to bring Rosa back.   

Then onto all of that, add Rosa being back from the dead, and Liz watching her struggle to the point of overdose. Then her manipulative, absentee mother hits town in order to fuck with her mind some more, she deals with Arturo almost being deported, and then her ex-fiance is back. 

All the while Liz was relegated to being a small town girl working as a server in the family restaurant, and having that thrown in her face, when she clearly is a genius with infinite potential. 

Going Mad!Scientist in a bid to feel like she has some control over all of these things that have happened to her, in a response to all this unimaginable trauma, in a bid to reclaim an identity outside of the-girl who-loved-Max-Evans-so-much-she-brought-him-back-from-the-dead... actually makes sense.  Unfortunately instead of having the narrative recognize these things, instead of making it about her losing the thread in an attempt to take control of her life, they instead choose to frame all her actions simply as her ambition to make a better name for immigrants. 

Which was IMO a clumsy attempt at scoring some social justice points. I get the themes about immigration and it was a way to illustrate Max’s white privilege, and the extra obstacle’s Liz has faced, but that could have been done without using it to justify Liz’s unethical behavior and actions.  I know the show patted themselves on that back so hard for that, but it was a disservice to the character. Anyone of Liz’s intellect would have known that she could never share what she was doing in any way that would allow her to claim that glory for Latina scientists. So it came off as clumsy instead of nuanced, and we got this hand wave of an explanation instead of an in-depth study of a character who went a bit off the rails. 

At the end of the day, though, Liz loves Max. Liz will always love Max. And Max loves Liz. Max will always love Liz. So hopefully her time away, and their time apart, will give each of them the necessary perspective so that when they reunite, they’ll work much better as a unit. 

[inessencedevided]

The Untamed, episode 46 - watching notes

Full disclosure: I'm not in a particularly good mood today. Have you seen that "no productivity. Only guild." Meme flying around? That's me today :|

Hopefully this will distract me (though distraction was the problem in the first place 🙈)

I apologise for any typos you'll finde in this post 😅

To recap, the last thing I learned was that apparently, Jiggy married his own sister because Jin Guangshan was a scumbag who raped more women than he could possibly remember

I was told by several people that this episode is their favourite. No pressures or anything :D

The way someone is dragging up Jiggy's secrets has a lot of poetic justice to it. Everyone is outraged and gossiping. Consensus is reached quickly. Kinda makes me feel that that someone (who probably also wrote the letter to jgy) knows exactly how to use the sect world's worst qualities as a weapon

Yao what's-his-name, resident gossip queen, at it again

Don't look at me my memory is as bad as wwx when it comes to names :D

I was about to write who is Lianfang Zum again and then I remembered that it's jiggy's honorary title. See what I mean? ^^

What does it say about me that my heart makes a leap when I simply see wwx leaning close to lwj to whisper to him? 😅 I'll probably die reading the novel, that's what that says

Oh so it was the maid who sent the letter

Come on Wei Wuxian! That was cruel

Yeah Yao what's-his-name, why would you need to know the identity of who ever is behind this? It's not like you've ever been deceived before!

What's... with that bracelet?

I love it how everyone looks positively startled when Lan Wangji says something unprompted :D

Wait ... Zwei Jun is in his hands? Shit, i don't remeber what happened there. Where did Xichen go again? 😬

I'm so confused right now 🙈 I can't watch and read the subtitles and type

Okay, watched the whole conversation again, now I'm following

I reiterate my earlier statement that whoever is pulling the strings here knows exactly what strings to pull to get the clans to act

Great, another mob 🙄

Loooool

NOW you want his help? 😂

Sure, as soon as he can serve YOU with his "evil tricks", that's okay!

You can see how much wwx changed because he does not hold their hypocrisy to their faces. He mostly seemed tired of it

And Jiang Cheng just realised that wwx might indeed not be responsible for Jiang Yanli's death, didn't he? He's almost stunned 🥺

Or is BEAUTIFUL to see Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji move in such unity! 😭

Oh ... those are the graves of his foster parents, right? :(

And Yanli ... oh God I forgot about Yanli 🥺

I'm crying again. Nothing on this show will ever hit as hard to me as the Yunmeng siblings' fate

I couldn't help myself, I legitimately just stroked my laptop screen where Yanli's plate was 🥺

So many conflicting emotions

Thanks to a friendly anon, I know that these three bows together are marriage thing! 😭😭😭

So yeah, they're married now. I dont make the rules :')

Somehow, this feels like them asking wwx's foster family's blessing

And now I'm imagining Shijie smiling back at them gently and I'm crying 🥺

And by God, I love lwj's gentle teasing :')

This whole scene, he's so soft! 😭

And it think that Wei Wuxian probably thought that he'd never get to step into Lotus Pier again. But here, he can finally say his goodbyes to his Shijie properly. He can heal! 🖤

And again, I cannot stress enough how wonderful that is! And how rare and precious in a show like this. So often character's get put through unimaginable trauma, but they either brush it off no problem or the show/movie ends immediately after the main action and you are left to imagine the number it did on the character's psyche. There are so rarely fantasy shows that really dive into the emotional fallout the plot has on their characters and then give them time to heal. Thus show does both and I'm so goddamn overjoyed my it!

Come to think of it, it reminds me of a very good hurt/comfort fic 🤷‍♀️

Jiang Cheng pleae, fir once, try not to be angry immediately when you're hurting :(

He still takes special offence that lwj is there. Makes me wonder if he still feels like wwx chooses lwj over the Jiang sect and is still hurt by it 😔 (note that at the same time, he reminds wwx that he's very much not a member of the Jiang clan anymore. God, the man has not worked through his own feelings ...)

For once, as much as I love it when lwj defends wwx (especially when it's not against any physical harm, but because he doesn't want wwx to be hurt emotionally) I think him interfering with this particular conflict does not help

Okay sorry, but no! lotus pier was not destroyed because wwx saved lwj in that cave. That was just an excuse for the Wen sect. They would have come eventually anyway

Ohhh

So there's my answer

He's still hurt because he feels wwx chooses anyone else over his family, which is to say him

And he probably can't understand because their positions are so different. The (future) sect leader and the son of a (dead) servant and a rogue cultivator who never felt quite like he belonged 😔

It's so goddamn tragic how much between these two was destroyed simply because they have such a different status in society and could never quite understand each other's perspective

And again, wwx just takes it 💔

Until, that is, lwj's honour gets besmirched

Don't fight in front of Shijie 🥺

Jiang Cheng's every action screams that he still loves his brother and that amidst all that pain for his lost family, is also deep betrayal and grieve for the brother he thought he could always count on 🥺💔

Can we appreciate for a second how much this shot tells us? From Jiang Cheng's angry desperation, to Wei Wuxian's quite acceptance of his rage (which must be so confusing to Jiang Cheng and probably hurt him even more. Because fighting is always how these two resolved their issues!) to Lan Wangji who is in full on protective mode (which I find more than heartwarming,but still think probably isn't helpful rn)

He ... what?

I still don't quite understand when exactly wwx's lack of golden core shows. Why does he have a nosebleed here?

What?

Oh!

Wen Ning 😱

I get what he wants to do!

Have we ever seen him this calm and determined before?

Abd they understand 😱😱😱

The look on all of their faces! Shiiiiit

I'm crying again

Oh wangii is crying 🥺

Wen Quing 💔💔💔 I'm crying even harder just looking at her. I've MISSED her 🥺

Lan Zhan your FACE!! 😭

The way he's looking at wwx in his arms, as if he's seeing him fir the first time

And by god, I can only imagine what he must be thinking

He must be reevaluation every single interaction they had since wwx started down the path of demonic cultivation 😭

I'm a bit in awe of Wen Ning here and how much he must have been holding in. That's the steadiest and most confident he's ever been

Oh Jiang cheng 💔

That looks like a man whose entire world has just been shaken to its core

And Lan Wangji is crying so much 🥺

God I hope he doesn't blame himself even more 🥺

Aaaaaaahhhh, so that is why he wouldn't just carry the sword for appearance sake and why he just had a nosebleed!

Jiang Cheng probably needs about a month to process all that :/

And therapy ...

Aaaaaaahhhh! The boat scene! I've seen gifs! 😍😍😍

A penny for Lan Wangji's thoughts ...

Oh I'm so so so so glad that Wen Ning gets to say thank you to the man who raised his ... cousin (?) :')

Oh god we get to see!!!!

Oh little a Yuan 😭😭😭😭😭😭

I wonder now, did Lan Qiren know who the child was that his nephew suddenly brought back to cloud recess?

I'm glad that we all learned from this that keeping secrets from the people we love, especially secrets that concern them personally, will eventually come back to bide us in the ass. Than you for delivering that important lesson, wen Ning!

Which reminds me that I hope they eventually tell wwx that they know 😬

I swear to god, one of these days I will melt from the gentleness in lan Wangji's gaze :')

Shit. He had to be awake? 😳

You can pinpoint the moment Lan Wangji's heart breaks for all the suffering wwx endured and how close he came to loosing him even then 🥺

Waking like that in you lovers arms in the middle of a lotus pond - that's the dream *sighs* (minus the passing out bit)

It's weirdly cute that wwx thinks that it's Jiang Cheng's insults that have lwj so upset 😅

Oh GOOOOD ...

I can't

The moment Yanli's themes started to play and she appeared I started to bawl 😭😭😭

And he's sharing the lotus pods with them ... oh please, lwj, please understand what he's saying. That's his pove language! His sister's food was how he received love and right now he passes it on to you! Please, please understand it! 🥺

Oh lwj, don't 🙈

Awwwwww ....

He's breaking the rules for you!!! Just to make you smile!!! 😭😭

And holy shit look at their expressions 😭

By now you should know that he's willing to break the rules for you :')

And poor third wheel Wen Ning 😂

Now there are glittering butterflies???

Do they have some kind of romantic aesthetic bingo going on in this episode???

Oh okay, messenger butterflies

Please appreciate wwx almost climbing into lan Wangji's lab in excitement :D

Thay scene transition was pretty af!

Hey! Why do they bully wen Ning? 😤

*shakes wwx by the shoulders* DO YOU GET THAT HE LOVES YOU NOW???

Huh, this episode was a roller coaster. you guys did NOT exaggerate! I loved it to pieces. I'm floored once more by all the actor's performances. Wen Ning revealed a lot about his character, Jiang Cheng broke my heart, Lan Wangji made it melt and Shijie is still able to make me bawl in an instant. But ... I'm not left with a bitter feeling. Sure, jiang Cheng and wei Wuxian havebt reconciled, but the truth is the first step to even have that possibility. Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji are both healing and whatever happens in the last 4 (4!!!😭) episodes, I'm not dreading it that much right now. I feel like we're climbing upwards :)

@sweetlittlevampire @fandom-glazed @elenirlachlagos @allhailthedramallama @luckymoony @kyrrahbird @i-love-him-on-purpose thank you guys for staying with me for this crazy ride 💙🖤💙

Also one last thing: please don't tell me what happens differently in the novel in any given scene. I am still reading it (about half way through rn) and I'd like to still be surprised by stuff like first kisses and love confessions 💙🖤

I should have put something like this at the end before, but I always forgot. That's on me 😅 so don't feel bad, if you've shared something before :)

[dotthings]

After 15.07 ended I had to sit there crying for about ten minutes, marinating in my Dean feelings. So that’s how things are going here.

[[MORE]]

Dean sure is drinking a lot. Oh sweetie. Sure he’s fine. He’s just fine. Perfectly fine. It’s not just Cas weighing on him but Cas is gone yet still out there. But away from him, and he’s feeling alienated from Cas, and Dean’s got this existential crisis about the meaning of his whole life, and he’s just not fine.

Domestic Sam and Eileen cooking together in the bunker kitchen and acting like they’ve been married for 15 years or so I CAN’T EVEN. Those moments of domesticity are important to give this story texture. It’s never going to be all about cooking in the bunker kitchen being adorable but these are complex characters with layers and whole lives and soft marshmallow centers underneath their harsh, monster-hunting shells and I LOVE IT.

Dean likes Eileen (and she made bacon, thus winning a thousand points) and the only point during these scenes Dean showed really any lightening of his burdens was seeing Sam and Eileen together and teasing Sam about her. He just wants Sam to be happy, and Sam is worried about Dean, and oh my heart *squishes them*. “That’s progress, right?” Sam tells Eileen all hopeful, because Dean went out on a hunt. Oh Sam, honey, Sam you know better than that but you want Dean to be okay as much as Dean is posturing to be okay so you’re trying to roll with it. Dean fleeing from his life into a hunt isn’t really a good sign though.

When Dean finds Lee, it’s the first time all season we’ve seen him all the way through happy. I’m not sure I’ve seen Dean look that kind of happy well...ever. My heart is SHATTERING HERE. It’s like this is the Dean that could be, if circumstances had been less brutal, if the monsters, and heaven, and hell, and God himself, had been less brutal, if his mom hadn’t died when he was four, if John had been well...not the way John was to him, and even with all that, the capability is still in Dean, that sense of joy in being alive, in being open.

This ep is kind of underscoring how important different kinds of relationships are. No matter how much I love the relationships of Team Free Will, none of them can be all the things for each other, even if it’s three instead of just two. Eileen and Sam’s rapport shows it in this ep and Dean’s rapport with Lee shows it. It doesn’t mean Cas and Sam are less important to Dean. And I think Dean and Cas really belong together and are suited, if they can climb over being their own worst enemies, and Sam and Dean are Sam and Dean, but Dean and Lee have their own thing too and it BREAKING MY HEART SEEING THIS.

Oooh Eileen makes her move and Sam seems interested and—-LOLOLOL Cas cockblocks Saileen.

Sam is so damn pissy about Cas not getting back to him I am loving it.

“Yeah, I got better.” This should be a crest on a stone shield over the bunker door at this point, everyone in it died at one point or another...but then they got better.

Cas IMMEDIATELY demanding “Where’s Dean?”

He’s so put out that Dean isn’t there akdlfjkl;asjg;lahf even though Cas doesn’t want to talk to him right now. WHERE’S DEAN. The song of the Castiel.

Dean assuming that Lee probably died after they lost touch because “I mean that’s how this usually ends” is the most hunter most sad thing ever.

But no he didn’t die, he retired and bought a bar, he’s living Dean’s Rocky’s Bar dream and everything hurts.

So Eileen realizes that whatever Sergei is planning to do about Sam’s God bullet wound is a bad idea, while Sam and Cas jump right in because they just want to get Chuck and of course it goes badly. This is peak Team Free Will dumbassery. Eileen is such a reasonable, sensible voice here but it doesn’t stop them.

Cas finally calls Dean on purpose because Sam is hurt, I mean nothing brings bickering husbands together like mutual worry over one of their kids. Also Cas is so distressed about Sam, maybe he wants Dean there, it’s almost not quite a flip on Dean praying to Cas needing Cas there personally when he’s scared for Sam.

“If you don’t help me tonight I will find you and burn you alive.” Fierce Cas protecting Sam. I’m all tingly.

So Dean asks Lee “who’s going to kill the bad guys”

“Somebody else” says Lee.

At first, Lee’s ideas about retirement sound like not a completely terrible idea, there is more to life than hunting, and maybe Dean should have the chance to explore that. Oh and it sounds like this friendship with Lee was something Dean had while Sam was an Stanford and I have so many thoughts on that, those years are left unfilled in by canon, we can only surmise and piece together. The idea that Dean was fully lonely the entire time, completely lost without his brother...maybe not so much. Much as it was also hard on Dean having Sam leave him and John behind so completely and I’m sure it hurt. But here’s the thing, they spent years apart, and both had their lives, and this look into a friendship from Dean’s past, while Sam had Jess...interesting. Again, gee it’s like more than one relationship in people’s lives matter.

Eileen looking after Sam who is suffering from a wound “down to his very soul.” Eileen’s worried little face. Cas’s worried face.

Okay okay I knew Lee could turn out to be evil, I knew that, I still shouted NOOOOOOOO. Figured ahead of time this ep could go one of three ways. 1. Djinn dream and Lee wasn’t real 2. Lee is real but good 3. Lee is real and was a friend but turns out to be a betrayer or a monster or dies (ooh fun times we went with a triumvirute on number 3)

I was actually getting annoyed at Cas for trusting Sergei in the first place but then Cas, the tactician, the smart ruthless angel, is holding a captive over Sergei. He knew Sergei might screw them over all along and was prepared.

Eileen pinning Sergei angrily up against the wall by his throat, threatening him for Sam’s sake. SAM THIS ONE IS A KEEPER.

Also Eileen reminds me a lot of Cas. They can both be soft but have this ruthless streak, this warrior fury that comes out.

Oh welp here we go, Lee let the darkness eat his heart. He wasn’t turned into a monster, and he doesn’t do it for greed, it just...ate him up, all he wanted, after his trauma, was some peace but there are costs too high and he gave up what was good about him to get some minor good fortune, his dream bar.

“If evil like that exists int he world, guys like you and me, we aren’t ever going to win”

“No one’s innocent”

“Are we owed a little happiness”

“Good or bad, the world doesn’t care. No one cares, Dean.”

So while Dean is facing this existential abyss about whether anything he’s done, all the trauma he’s gone through, had any meaning, because he found out God was outright manipulating events around him his whole life, on purpose, for entertainment, there’s his old friend, someone Dean clearly connected strongly with and cares about, spilling his own abyss out onto the table in front of Dean and the abyss in Lee is a lot darker and danker and rotted than Dean’s, and Dean’s the one who has to contend with actual freakin’ GOD screwing him over, personally, his whole life.

“Well I do.”

This is probably where I started crying during the episode, because of Dean. Because of all the trauma, all the losses, all the unimaginable horrors he’s faced, including his own inner demons, and he never gave up and he never lost his caring for the world and for others. He often doesn’t care much about himself but he never stopped CARING. And his spirit and his heart are as fierce and butt-kicking as his monster-fighting and hand-to-hand combat skills (I so enjoyed this bamf Dean fight scene) and that is why I love Dean SO SO MUCH.

*pauses to cry again*

“I am you. That woke up and saw the world was broken.” But Lee doesn’t know that Dean knows the world is broken. He knows eactly how broken the world is, how literally broken, that it’s just one of Chuck’s many drafts, and how uncaring Chuck the creator really is. It doesn’t get more world-breaking than that, and Dean knows, and IT DIDN’T BREAK DEAN. Lee’s projecting, he just can’t understand how someone who is like him, who’s witnessed horrors like what he’s witnessed, isn’t broken the way Lee is. But Dean is Dean, he isn’t Lee.

“Why do you care so much Dean?”

“Because someone has to.”

Oh hey because I haven’t made this post painful enough yet with Dean analysis, let’s take a look back at 2.20 What Is and What Should Never Be (transcript courtesy of superwiki)

“All of them. Everyone that you saved, everyone Sammy and I saved. They're all dead. And there's this woman, that's haunting me. I don't know why. I don't know what the connection is, not yet anyway. It's like my old life is, is coming after me or something. Like it like it doesn't want me to be happy. Course I know what you'd say. Well, not the you that played softball but... "So go hunt the Djinn. He put you here, it can put you back. Your happiness for all those people's lives, no contest. Right?" But why? Why is it my job to save these people? Why do I have to be some kind of hero? (begins to cry while talking) What about us, huh? What, Mom's not supposed to live her life, Sammy's not supposed to get married? Why do we have to sacrifice everything, Dad?”

But Dean is way past this, he’s gone through that stage of questioning and come out the other side. He tells Lee nobody owes him anything. He isn’t owed a reward. He just cares because he does and that’s...well, that’s kind of how life is. As fans, we talk about what our favorites deserve, and of course they deserve some peace and happiness. But that’s not always how it works...still they can keep hoping and we can keep hoping for them. The story isn’t over.

Whereas Lee, when he asked those questions about “why us, why do we have to be the heroes” came out the other side completely broken and corrupt.

The way Dean’s eyes went dead inside when he had to stab Lee. Like a light went out in Dean as Lee died. The contrast between that and his light-hearted pure joy at seeing his old friend again. JUST STAB ME TOO OKAY

Oh my goodness Dean’s return to the bunker and that awkward awkward face to face with Cas and neither of them seems angry any more even but there’s so so much negative space between them and Dean seems like he wants to maybe bridge the gulf but now Cas shuts Dean out, cuts him off, and walks out of the room, a flip on what Dean was doing in eps 1-3 to Cas. And the STARING oh my god the staring. Despite their problems, despite everything, Dean and Cas have a powerful bond and bonds don’t have to be trouble free and perfect to be good ones. They’re going to fix this, if they can climb over their walls and their issues and find their joy together. Because they are both worth it. They are also similar. No matter what’s been thrown at them, how much suffering, how much trauma. Cas, like Dean, keeps getting back up, and hasn’t lost his caring. “Too much heart was always Castiel’s problem” and it’s actually Dean’s problem too and by problem, for them on this, we actually mean great big asset.

Both of them, Cas last week, and Dean this week, undergo something separately that shows them why they have to get back into the fight, and not run away from everything (or each other, I think, that’s tacit). “If I stay here nothing changes” Cas said in 15.06. Cas was able to prove to himself, for himself, that he could save people, that he wasn’t an entire failure, and Dean went through an experience in 15.07 that jolted him to connect with his own sense of caring again, to feel the meaning in who he is and what he does, and how much he cares. Despite Chuck’s nonsense, he still cares about everything, so much it hurts.

[allyvampirelass29]

Bats in the Lake House

Bats in the Lake House A NOS4A2 Review By: Allyssa J. Watkins

A silent night A haunting song Seeing Uncle Charlie in your dreams Wayne, what's wrong? Christmas is forbidden For little boys who must stay hidden But a Lake House is not a Batcave Why can't the dark knight play with Charlie Manx Unless Vic McQueen is in the grave? Come boy, the moon winks, beckoning to you Christmasland is your North Star Do me a special favour, Wayne? Tell me where you are........."

The Lake House, while being more flash than bang, although ironically, it ends in one hell of a one, (Aaaaaaaah yeah, I'm still dead!) was a fun, intrigue of an episode, although like one of the homemade McQueen explosives buried a little too deep in the ground, doesn't hit quite as hard. That being said, it has THE most eerily dazzling opener of the entire series!!!! Wayne tosses and turns, hearing the siren's call of the Found Children's song, drawn to the window in a trance, pulls back the curtain and sees....... CHRISTMASLAND!!!! My heart STOPPED. I knew it wasn't real, it had to be a dream, and yet seeing him there, knowing how hard Vic was fighting to keep him from it, was both a thrill and a chill!!! Who KNEW Charlie Manx makes House Calls!? I LOVED this entire scene, it was so suspenseful, the horror on Vic's face as she hears her son humming Silent Night, over and over, following and fretting over her little duckling, all around the house, not realizing that, all the while, Charlie is not only there, hidden behind the veil of a dream, but is coaxing her son, pulling out all the stops, ever the showman, as he sells young Wayne on the joy and wonder of Christmasland!!!

Again, I know I've said this before, but Our Darling Zachary Quinto, truly embodying his Vampire Chauffer counterpart, dons a new facet of his dark, intense beauty, and magnificent malice, each new episode, bringing his holiday fear, and terrifyingly good looks to the dead heat of summer!!! I kept thinking how I need only open the door unto such a dark, dazzling visage, and I'd be like, "YES, DEAR GOD, TAKE ME TO CHRISTMASLAND!!!! I also love the way he is with Wayne, so paternal, and sweet, and patient with him, always doting upon him! It's a joy to watch them on screen together, the little lad and the Big Bad, walking side by side, so innocent. I especially loved how Charlie had the vampire children stand far enough away from the window, so that he couldn't tell they were vampires, so as not to scare him! That was adorable!

Aha the candy cane!!! I had my suspicions, first with Haley, and then last week with Wayne, there was such a smug satisfaction on Charlie's face as he took it, and I knew there had to be more! Can I say, as a writer, myself, I thought that was pure, smashing, genius!!! The key to Charlie's retrieval operations, slipping into the Children's dreams, and convincing them Christmasland is where they belong. How exciting to learn the secret of the magician's disappearing trick!! All of these scenes were phenomenal, and my heart ached with an inexplicable longing the way he said it...... "Tell me where you are, and I'll pick you up straight away......." Happy fuzzy sigh. Yes, I said my own address out loud. Come and get me, Charlie Manx.

The weekend escape to the Lake House was such a fun, promising concept, a chance for Vic, Lou, and Wayne to spend some real family time together, away from the looming reach of Charlie Manx and the pressures paid for by being a Strong Creative, with Aunt Maggie, and a Fed or two in tow. Wayne seeing the ornaments in the trees gave me chills, and it was interesting to think the McQueen clan had a Manx stowed away in their youngest's mind. Chris continues to impress me, giving Vic some MUCH needed advice about loving and leaving, and how trying to do both can cause more damage than cutting ties completely. Maggie is an absolute delight, as ever, and I love, love, LOVED her comment about Vic's father becoming Bear Grylls with his Spooky, Horror Cabin!!!! That was hilarious, and I'm still laughing as I write this!!!

I also loved what she said about, "None of those dudes are normal." That was a really beautiful moment for me, and I suspect an especially poignant one for Vic. She's always seen herself an an outsider, even in her own created family, but here she finally sees that she's not alone. That normal isn't so normal for them either, and she doesn't have to carry the consequences of having this peculiar gift all on her own. Also, can I just say, I think this was a subtle, tongue in cheek hint, to Wayne being a Strong Creative, inheriting his mother's gift, and if I'm right, I am so here for it, beyond THRILLED, and crossing my fingers!!! What a perfect twist, for Vic to have a little soldier with a knife, and inscape all his own, in the fight against Charlie Manx.

The warm fuzzies continue with Vic running off the dock, and jumping carefree into the lake, splashing and playing with her boys. I loved this so much, it was profound, getting to see them all together as family, happy, laughing, not a care in the world. It was Vic choosing her family, taking the leap into what it means to be vulnerable to the pains of loving Lou without doubt, and being a mother Wayne could respect, and love, and feel safe with. It was the last golden rays of sun before the night set in...... and oh what a night it will be......

The Lake House flawlessly sets up the suspense, puts all the players in place, loads up the Wraith as it were, with the intruding menace, and potential to be the BEST episode yet. But I felt a lull, I don't know, like we were forced to wait around. I was ready, and dying for it all to get started, for Charlie to swoop in the dead of night and attack. I felt like I was prepared for a fight that never came. Yes, I realize it was all to set up for the next episode, and I am enamoured with the screaming danger that awaits, but I don't know, I hungered for a little taste of it now, as I felt all that built up suspense, and pent-up foreshadowing fizzle out.

Okay, deep breath, when I said the episode ended with a bang, I was NOT kidding....... Tabitha, throwing caution and FBI protocol to the wind, invades the newest iteration of the House of Sleep, without back up, but it's okay because she brought a mask. Yes, that was clever, the mask safety and all, but I just felt like she should have been so much smarter than that!!! Last time I checked, going off half cocked, and riding headlong into mortal danger was Vic's thing!!! I loved that Bing had a special shrine inside the church to Charlie, wreathed in Christmas lights, with his Wanted Poster, I thought that was cute, and such a sneaky little detail. I would have loved to have seen Charlie's reaction to that, I can just see his initially disturbed expression, before arching his dark eyebrow, amused!!

Damn, I thought the fight between Bing and Craig was as intense as it got, but Bing VS Tabitha, was easily just as pulse pounding, and blood curdling. I'm not going to lie...... I thought Tabitha was dead, the moment she went down into that church basement. I heaved a sad little sigh when Maggie said, "We all know what happens to cops who cross with Charlie Manx....." We love you Joe, and we miss you!!! I thought that was a both a bittersweet tribute to Joe, and also a foreboding as to Tabitha's own fate. Tabitha after a fight to the near death, scratching, and clawing for her life, subdues Bing, when a tall, dark, handsome stranger steps from the shadows, and Tabitha comes face to face with her own demons, and the man she swore couldn't possibly exist. "Trespassing is a federal offence," He says silkily, before slamming a hammer into her shoulder without hesitation .

My heart almost can't take what happens next, watching Tabitha and Charlie scrapple with an even deadlier ferocity, in the midst of Charlie's seething taunts about what a waste it was to kill her here, and I wondered, if he'd known who she was, that she was Maggie's own girlfriend, would he have taken her prisoner, instead of trying to kill her? Make some kind of exchange for Wayne? The click of a gun cocked, not even a breath in-between, as the bullet is sent screaming, burrowing through the dead center of Charlie's forehead. At three in the morning, I have to clamp both hands over my mouth, not to let out a piercing scream of my own!!!! Charlie falls, lifeless, donning every appearance of death, as the tears stream down my eyes, and Tabitha makes a miraculous escape.

Yes, I know, Charlie's immortal, I know the only way to kill him, is outside the church right now, safe, but watching him fall like that, the blood pooling on his forehead, was a fleeting moment of pure, abject horror, and I felt helpless, wanting only to hold and cry over him!!! Death itself has no hold on Charles Manx, however, and after only a taste of it, he rises from his fallen place, as reanimated as ever, a bloom in his cheek, reaching for the back of his head. In a move that is pure, and utter SYLAR, he pulls out the protruding bullet, long nails dripping with blood, and lets out a sinister laugh, that is both beautiful and threatening, his smirk morphing into smouldering, slanted brow, murder. Careful, Kids...... Charlie Manx is coming to town.

The Lake House is full of all of these flashes of meaningful little moments. I loved the conversation between Lou and Vic about how they found each other, and came together as more than friends. If we had met randomly, under different circumstances, neither of us in mortal danger, would we still be together? Would it still be me? I really appreciated this as a viewer, because they finally said what everybody else was thinking....... Before the third episode, I thought of Lou as Vic's life raft, a comfort she had clung to, frozen, in the midst of unimaginable trauma. The question lingers unanswered. Vic and Lou came together during harrowing life and death turmoil, they found each other just when they needed to the most, in the aftermath of a ghastly tragedy, but can their love survive without it? When the storm is over, and there is just life, without the threat of death, and continued kidnappings, when there is no one left to save....... Will Vic and Lou still feel the same?

Another one of these little moments comes at bedtime between mother and son. Wayne is such a smart, confident little guy, and he's handled his attempted kidnapping with such calm, quiet strength, that I think Vic thinks he's more resilient, and doing better than he really is. After all, he's still only eight years old. For him to finally take off his brave face cowl, and say, Mom, you're hurting me, this is why I'm sad, what I worry about, what I want, was such a powerful moment, and a much needed wake-up call for Vic.

Ultimately, I give the Lake House due credit for creating such breathtaking suspense, and leaving us wanting more. I hope next week we can delve right into the explosive action, and Manx's revenge, the full out attack on the lake house at last!!! No more teasing, NOS4A2!!! After all, It's not a family vacation without Wayne's favourite Uncle Charlie.......The stage is set, The Batcave is empty, and The Wraith Cometh.

[marshmellowtea]

hey!! im gonna send you a lot of charas, you can answer them as you want, I just wanna make sure you have enough to answer all you want!! seishi, nikei, ayumu, marin maki, komaeda, makoto, mikan and sayake, please!

aaaaaaaa anon ur so sweet ilysm ;o; 

i’ll probably have to divide these into a couple posts so i can break it into chunks for myself but i’ll start off with seishi, nikei, and ayumu here :’0 

also putting this under a cut so i hopefully don’t break anyone’s dashes 

seishi 

favorite thing about them 

he’s just,, baby?? he’s just baby hdfjaslkdfsdf i don’t even know how to describe it. i was attached to him the moment i saw him and the more i watched of him the more in love i fell he’s such a precious dork,, 

least favorite thing about them 

idk if this actually counts because this is more of a criticism of his writing than anything but it’s so annoying how people just default him to “standard evil villain” after the katagiri zen reveal like no,, there’s so much more that can be done with him,, how dare you,, 

favorite line 

tbh as much as i’m disappointed (read: angry) with the direction voices was going to go, “did you just call us horny?” is still an ICONIC line fhaslksdfjlksdf i love it so much 

brOTP 

him and marin! also him and mikoto,, and him and nico,, tbh him and any girl is good he just vibes “let’s go wlw let’s go!!”, y’know? i also like him and nikei being like. adopted brothers or adopted cousins tbh it’s really cute 

OTP 

seishi/akira/ayumu/saiji. yes that it as an ot4. yes it counts come at me bro. any seishi/rebirth boy ship is good tho 

nOTP 

i,, really don’t like seishi/girls fjadsklfjsadf feels bad man 

random headcanon 

he has TRAUMA dammit!! i hc that he has a backstory similar to maki’s in that he was forced into being an assassin at a young age so it wasn’t really his choice to get involved in all this. i’ve kinda ran that idea into the ground at this point though so here’s a lighter headcanon: when he was 14, he reeeaaaally wanted to be a cat. like, to the point where he’s embarrassed to look back on those days because oh my god he really straight up tried to act like a cat 24/7 huh? kinda ties into another headcanon of mine that he’s less mature than he lets on and tends to go through periods of feeling kinda childlike but ssshh shsh shsh shush

unpopular opinion 

he’s a good boy with a morally dubious job and that doesn’t make him automatically evil. y’all are just unimaginative, uncreative and mean >:( 

song i associate with them 

coughs at my seishi and zen playlists uhh there’s a lot tbh but the songs most strongly connected with him in my mind are “this is how you spell haha we destroyed the hopes and dreams of a generation of faux romantics” by los campesinos! and “i’ve got all this ringing in my ears and none on my fingers” by fall out boy (and yes those are two songs with very long titles i know hdfaklsjdflsd ;w;) 

favorite picture of them 

aaaa rebirth doesn’t have a lot of good cgs to pull from across either of its canons and idk if fanart counts so,, but gosh i really love his surprised sprite. he’s like :o. he’s so baby i love him so much 

nikei 

favorite thing about them 

he’s so interesting. it’s clear a lot of work went into his character, and it’s always a fascinating struggle to try and write him. i think it might be a bit easier after chapter four is fully translated but still there’s a lot of complexity to him and it’s interesting trying to break down his outer shell and get inside his head, y’know? also, he’s adorable. i wanna squish his cheeks. 

least favorite thing about them 

oh my GOD does my boy stress me out. i hate seeing him being mean to my other favorite characters and i’m always just like baby why are you like this please don’t ohmygod?? i’m gonna have to watch chapter four with my hands covering my eyes hasdfjslkdf i hate betrayal plots :’) 

favorite line 

this is kinda hard actually hasdkflsjdfk but “and she threw them away just like that? girl, are you a genius or an idiot, make up your mind!” from the third trial is reALLY GOOD FHKJDFLKDSF on a more heartbreaking note though him apologizing before he dies is just,, god. god.

brOTP 

him and the other voids!! they’re a family fight me. and him and seishi, ofc. i also like him and setsuka a lot though,, after chapter six i’m doubling down on my “she’s his mom!!” stance okay. i also like him and yoruko because i think they could have a fun dynamic (and maybe a soft dynamic with older yoruko,, maybe,,)(what i’m saying is that he gains another mom okay. let me project my mommy issues in peace) 

OTP 

i,, actually largely headcanon him as aro so there’s not a lot of ships with him i’m super passionate about?? i still kinda like him and setsuka in aus and such but other than that i mostly dropped all my ships for him after chapter six cuz it’s no big loss to me. though,, i’m not gonna lie, i still have a HUGE soft spot for sorakei. after seeing his free time events they just,, grew on me and i’d think they’d be really cute together c’mon guys can we make it happen- :’0 

nOTP 

nikei/mikado nikei/mikado nikei/mikado LIKE CAN WE PUT IT TO REST ALREADY I ACTUALLY HATE IT 

random headcanon 

his hair is actually naturally super curly and he straightens it every morning so other people don’t realize this. the other voids think it looks really cute pre-straightener but he thinks it makes it hard for others to take him seriously which is why he goes to such lengths to try to hide it basically he does NOT appreciate the cooing he gets from emma, thank you very much. hgalsdjfadlfkl

unpopular opinion 

i’m not actually sure if this counts cuz i don’t see this on tumblr at least but i don’t think we should take what he says to emma and hajime in the void theater at face value. i think despite what he says he actually does care about them in his own way, he just doesn’t really show it well because he doesn’t like to be vulnerable around others. he’s an asshole sometimes (actually a lot of the time hadsflkjsdflk), but that doesn’t mean he’s unfeeling or unable to care about people. 

song i associate with them 

once again side eyes my nikei playlist ahdfslksdfjslkfd a part of me doesn’t want to spoil one of the songs on it because i do eventually wanna release it to the public but i really just,, i really gotta go with “are you satisfied?” by marina. it’s just too perfect and i think of him every time i hear it now 

favorite picture of them 

honestly? his first tts avatar. no talk him. him angy his last tts avatar upsets me though LEAVE HIM BE LINUJ

ayumu 

favorite thing about them 

AAAAAAAAAA BOYFRIEND BOYFRIEND he’s so sweet such a good boy!! i like that he’s empathetic towards others cuz of his luck and he cares about how it affects them. i like that he’s soft and definitely a good cuddle partner. i love that he’s a trans icon even if that’s not really the intent i don’t care he just vibes trans so well (gal or guy or nonbinary but i tend to stick with the trans guy headcanon cuz haha i transmasc-)  

least favorite thing about them 

i kinda wish he had more of a canon sarcastic side? i mean i’m gonna continue to write him that way lol but c’mon there had to have been times where his luck is just so wildly terrible that his inner hinata jumps out and he makes a quip about it hfkajsdfksdf 

favorite line 

aaaaaa his little hope speech during in voices’ chapter one trial makes me soft,, i love him so much,, i also like him shutting aruma down when she’s being too horny hdlkajdsflksdf it’s really good 

brOTP 

ngl i tend to ship him with most of the class so,, like,, i also brotp him with the whole class,, dalfksdlfkasdf 

OTP 

see above but my favorite of those pairings are ayumu/seishi, ayumu/akira and ayumu/mikoto 

nOTP 

when i’m headcanoning him as a trans guy: nico, misuzu, and kasumi cuz i hc them as lesbians. when i’m headcanoning her as a trans girl: seishi. kind of a nonissue when i go with a nonbinary headcanon though 

random headcanon 

he plays minecraft with akira a lot, but they always have to play in create mode where you can’t really die otherwise it’s just a montage of ayumu dying over and over again, pfft. even with unlimited life though he still usually ends up stuck somewhere and akira has to come dig him out and since akira’s a rude boy he’s always laughing his ass off as he’s doing it smh >:0

unpopular opinion 

it’s,, silly to be mad about his “secretly a boy” twist on the same level as you’re mad about the v3 protag twist,, it’s a fangan and not even that well known of one at that like it doesn’t really have the power to “break down barriers” like that or whatever tf you’re expecting hdsflkajsfdlksdf 

song i associate with them 

he’s another character i have a playlist for ahdflaksdjflaksd but “this is home” by cavetown and i cry every time :’) 

favorite picture of them 

once again there’s not a lot of canon art to pull from but i do adore the promo art of him with his “male” and “female” versions :’0 

[katsidhe]

And now it’s your turn! I would love to get the Director’s Commentary on “Awake, Arise.” Especially if you get inspired to add another chapter. 😜❤️

Thank you so much to both @caranfindel and @quirkykayleetam for asking about “Awake, Arise”! It’s a multi chapter, WIP season 9 AU with all my favorite things: Sam, and also torture. What else is there to say??

…okay, fine, let’s add some background.

How did you come up with the idea?

Sam’s been hurt a lot, hasn’t he? He gets injured every other episode, he gets tied up and threatened and tortured, he gets choked and stabbed and conked on the noggin and everything else under the sun. It’s why we love him. But most everything that’s happened to him (with the big ol’ glaring exception of the Cage) has been, if not wholly unanticipated, at least a shock in that moment. On the job, then acute hurt, then relative safety. When he’s in a fight, he can give as good as he gets. If he’s abducted, it’s a surprise, and it’s temporary. If he’s killed, it’s sudden, and he’s coming back. Even though hideous injury is a predictable hazard of his occupation, Sam hasn’t really been in a prolonged period of helplessness/anticipation of injury without a reasonable hope of escaping it or fighting back… at least, not on Earth.

In the Cage, on the other hand, Sam experienced unimaginably brutal and creative abuse, with no hope of escape or fighting back or rescue, and with every anticipation that each new day would be more absurdly unbearable than the last. But… he also didn’t need to be functional, per se, not beyond whatever variable standard of “entertaining” that Lucifer specified. He didn’t have to pull himself together to research a case or interact with civilians or navigate the nuanced and thorny complexities of his relationship with Dean.  

Basically, Sam’s day-to-day struggles are stressful and ongoing and dangerous, but he never knows precisely what to expect, and he knows he’s generally equipped to fight back; his time in the Cage was a lot more morbidly predictable and inevitable, but there was no requirement to be a sane, productive member of society.

So….. what if we combined the best worst of both worlds? What if Sam got an exact time and date and description for the hurt, a who what when where, without any way for him to fight or avoid it? And it would just keep happening, but in between, he had to keep living his life? What if, on top of that, it was the worst thing he could imagine: a return to the Cage? (Trauma is nice but REtrauma is nicer.) How do would he deal with THAT flavor of ongoing trauma—something unlike anything he’s felt before? 

Hence… the premise of Awake, Arise, which I tossed around in my mind for a few years, sort of fruitlessly wishing someone else would think of the same idea and write it. (I found a few stories with premises that were… vaguely similar but not quite there.) Eventually, I realized I’d have to be the change I wanted to see in the world. Or some such thing.

Why is it set in season 9?

Short answer? Not to put too fine a point on it, but adding Lucifer to s9 makes a stew that I think most embodies what I see as SPN’s mission statement: “Sam Winchester navigates various abusive relationships, of varying severity, to varying degrees of success.”

Longer justification: first of all, it’s gotta be after season 7—so that Sam’s in a place of relative functionality—and before season 11—so that Lucifer’s got little hope for imminent rescue. So that narrows the field a little.

And then I got to thinking about the other goals I had for a fic (y’know, beyond just endlessly self-indulgent Lucifer and Sam convos and Cage headcanons, which is my real genre of choice), and I realized I really, REALLY wanted to deal with the intricacies of Sam and Dean’s post-Gadreel relationship. The newly Mark’ed Dean is looking for absolution that Sam’s in absolutely no mood to give. Sam’s reeling from possession and betrayal; he’s trying, for the first time in a long time, to set some boundaries in their relationship. What better time to make things EVEN WORSE, than when Sam’s already got to navigate his victimhood at the hands of his own brother? What better time to add in Lucifer as both foil and cruel truth-teller?

Other things to love in season 9: Dean’s, erm, complicated relationship with violence and torture and Sam-as-victim is being exacerbated by the Mark (oh Dean, you scary bastard, I do love you)… and Cas and Sam’s friendship is both touchingly close and more than a tad off (”the only one who’s screwed up worse than you is me”, anyone?)… and Gadreel, whom I love, is hanging around to be a Sam-mirror (they should be friends but they’re very much noooot ahahaha)… 

What’s with the title?

“Awake, arise, or be forever fall’n” is a Paradise Lost quote. It’s Satan’s rallying cry to the other angels who have fallen from God’s grace: he’s telling them that he’s their only salvation. 

How closely is it going to follow canon events?

I’m operating under the logic that the ONLY thing that’s altered between canon and the Awake Arise universe is the existence of Abaddon’s spell. That being said, the addition of Lucifer to the season 9 chessboard upsets the plans of quite a few players, and changes the Sam’n’Dean dynamic dramatically! There are a lot of fun implications that come from that one alteration, so while  generally, facts that are true in canon remain true here, the landscape’s gonna look pretty different in the end.

Was this your first real attempt at creative writing?

Yepppp. It’s not my first fic ever (that dubious distinction belongs to a very short piece I wrote in about an hour right after 11.09 because holy shit 11.09 was not fucking around), but it’s the first one I’ve ever expended serious effort on. When I started writing it in 2017, I didn’t think of myself as any kind of an author. I think my writing has improved since then, and hopefully it will continue to improve.

It’s incredibly self indulgent, isn’t it?

Why, yes. Yes, it is. It is an excuse for my id to hurt Sam in fun new ways. I tacked intellectual character justifications onto it post hoc.

Are you ever going to update?

Yes. I am going to see this unholy thing through to the bitter end (which btw is already written). Chapter 17 is about three-quarters done.  

How long is it going to be?

Who knows! It began life with a broad fifteen chapter outline, but I kept thinking of more things to add to the middle, and then I needed additional things to connect those things in ways that made sense… you get the picture. Right now my outline has bloated to 33 chapters, and it’s almost certainly going to be longer than that.

And there’s my commentary! Thanks for asking!! I’m not even sure what people are most interested in knowing about this piece, since it’s a WIP… so if there’s some burning question or idle curiosity I didn’t cover, drop me a line!

[snowe-zolynn-rogers]

The 7 Times Eraserhead And Present Mic Became Parents

Summary: The seven times Aizawa Shouta and Yamada Hizashi became dads.

Pairings: Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead/Yamada Hizashi | Present

Warnings: Mentions of Past Child Abuse, Mentions of Past Trauma, Adoption, Lethal Doses Of Fluff But Also Slight Angst, Mentions of Past Non-Con

Crossposted on ao3

Chapter 3: Tenko

A little over a year after they had adopted Touya and Shoto, Aizawa was on a drug bust. He entertained his thoughts while he waited for his cue. The kids had grown, they were all recently now six, with Hitoshi's birthday having been just two days ago. It was the third of July and the night was quite cold compared to the day today.

Touya was still withdrawn and shy, and he flinched quite horribly still whenever someone raised their hands near him. It had nearly terrified Aizawa the first time Touya had done that violent flinch in self defense of him. It hurt to see him do that even though he hadn't intended to hit him at all, he'd intended to hug him.

Shoto was still frustratingly cold to others but was still very protective of his two brothers. He, unfortunately, also flinched, to a lesser extent than Touya, but it was enough that it was noticable. It infuriated him to know that they had these reactions.

Hitoshi was getting bolder too, beginning to excitedly point out that he wanted to be a pro hero. Touya and Shoto had excitedly buzzed energy to follow their adopted fathers' footsteps and be pro heroes as well.

It made him unimaginably proud to see them striving for something like that, but he also wanted them to have their own dreams; not just the ones he and Hizashi had. Touya had, at this comment, said he wanted to have a cafe and Shoto said he didn't care. Hitoshi told him he wanted to be a teacher at UA.

He heard someone's voice. His cue was the door of the building he was to listen for  the undercover officer to yell 'Freeze' after he was inside. He looked down to see him go in and landed quietly, waiting a few seconds for his cue but instead heard someone scream that didn't sound like the officer.

'Shit!' He thought, rushing in with his Erasure activated the second he was through the door and gazed at Shimura Itami and Shimura Kizuna with the undercover officer, Kyokanosaeru Shizuka. Shizuka was golding her gun to Itami's temple, hand over his eyes and Kizuna was hesitating because of it. So who got shot?

He heard a cough in the corner and then retching. He dared glance from Kizuna to see a boy in a white very oversized shirt clutching his stomach while he threw up onto the floor, shivering weakness.

Kizuna took the second to move but Aizawa erased her Quirk, which was Recreate. She could recreate anything she touched with all five fingers. He was grateful Shizuka had covered Itami's eyes. His Quirk was Pain, he could look at someone and cause them pain, much like his own but with more destructive consequences to the victim's body, eventually ending up with with the victim dying from the overwhelming pain or even going into psychosis if Itami gazed at them long enough.

Aizawa heard sirens as he restrained Kizuna with his capture weapon and he did the same to Itami's eyes too, to keep him from seeing anyone. Then he attended to the boy, leaving the villain couple to Shizuka to apprehend. The boy screamed at touch, two finger gloved hands coming up to scratch at Eraserhead's own in self-defence. But he was ultimately getting too weak to fight.

"I won't hurt you. My name is Eraserhead. I'm a pro hero. I'm here to help you. Can you talk?" He began. The boy nodded and let him lift his dress/shirt to press against the wound to stem the bleeding at least. It was to his lower abdomen, hopefully away from any vital organs. "Good job letting me help. Can you tell me your name?"

"Tenko."

"Good, that's good, Tenko. What's your Quirk? Why do you wear those gloves?" He pressed to keep him conscious. If he stopped talking and passed out with a wound like this and all this blood loss, he surely wouldn't make it.

"Decay. I can't touch anything with all five of my fingers or it turns to dust." The boy was breaking down into tears. Thankfully, the medics came in to take over.

"Don't take his gloves off. His Quirk is destructive if he touches things with all five fingers." He told them.

They took little Tenko to the hospital and it hurt to see him leave because he was reaching for him and crying harder and screaming. His heart throttled his throat even as he filed his paperwork and went home to Hizashi waiting up for him with the boys sleeping waching a movie while they waited.

"Hey, hun." Hizashi greeted him with a kiss.

"Daddy!" Touya awoke and hugged him.

"Hey Dad." Hitoshi jumped and hugged him too. He caught the two. Shoto simply waved tiredly. Thankfully the kids were all tired to he and Hizashi put them to bed and let them fall asleep in their own rooms.

"I think we need to talk about something." He told his fiance once they'd gotten all three boys to bed and had retired to their room, getting ready for bed as well.

"What's up, hun?" The vocal hero asked.

"What would you think about adopting again?"

"I'd love to. Were you thinking an orphanage or getting matched with a kid in the adoption system?" He looked over at Hizashi. He wanted Tenko, every burning instinct was telling him Tenko would die all too soon in any kind of orphanage or foster agency. He wasn't a strong boy like Touya and Shoto or a baby dumped on his doorstep like Hitoshi. He was frail and weak and Shouta's body screamed to protect him. Especially after reading when Shimura Kizuna and Itami had done to him, letting customers pay to use him. It made him gag and get nauseous worse just thinking about it. The tiny fragile boy had been through to much to be just six years old.

"There was a kid during the drug raid tonight on Agony and Recostruct. He's their son." He felt his voice, usually so monotone, crack.

"Shou?" Hizashi hugged him from behind.

"They let their customers pay to rape him, Zashi. They shot him and tried to kill him so he wouldn't be able to give information to the cops. They forced their own son to let men touch him like that." He felt himself holding tears back.

"Oh God, how could they...aw, Shou. You wanna adopt him?" He nodded, furiously wiping his eye. He couldn't cry now.

"He wanted me to stay, Zashi. He wanted me to stay with him but I couldn't." He rubbed furiously at his eyes and sniffled.

"Shou, if that' what you really want, and what you think he'll want, of course we can adopt him." The vocal hero was quiet behind his ear. He turned in his arms and pressed against him. He couldn't contain his emotions right now, not after seeing such a tiny child so hurt and malnourished and sickly. Tenko was supposed to be like Touya, Shoto, and Hitoshi, running around at the park playing tag, not in the not in a hospital with a gunshot wound he may not survive.

"We...We have to find out if he makes it through surgery first." He held Hizashi close tightly.

"He's that bad?"

"Tenko was so tiny, Zashi. He looked like they hadn't fed him in weeks." He heard Hizashi curse.

"Come on. The soorner we sleep, the sooner we can wake up and ask the cops if tenko made it. There'll be no waiting up and asking Sansa." And so they went to bed, but not quite to sleep. Halfway throught the night, Touya and Shoto came in after a nightmare and not had to use the bathroom and not being able to sleep by himself again, respectively. This was followed by their insomniac Hitoshi having woken up and been unable to get to sleep again. With their three boys snuggled up between them, Aizawa was finally able to sleep.

His brain woke him up early like he'd woken from a nightmare. But he saw Hizashi, Tenko, Shoto, and Hitoshi gone from the bed. The kids' cat stuffies were still on the bed. Shoto's bear with its red left side and white right, Touya's with its red back and white front, and Hitoshi's purple one. They all sat  abandoned near Shouta's arms. He heard a childish cheer from the kitchen.

"Yay! TenTen made it!" Hitoshi cheered. TenTen? Wait...Tenko? Was Hisashi calling the cops to ask about Tenko with Hitoshi?

"Papa?" So Touya was awake too and not just back in his room. "Will Tenko be okay?" Touya asked Hizashi.

"Tenko will be just fine, boys. He made it though the surgery just fine." He felt a weight lift off his chest. He sat up and stretched, walking out to the living room to find the boys crowding Hizashi, who looked to have just hung up the phone while the four sat on the couch.

"Shou, Tenko made it through surgery. He's been asking for you."

"That's great. I guess I should visit him later."

"I already got permission both from him and the police chief. All five of us are on his visitors list now."

"They put him in the secure ward then?" He asked, getting his coffee.

"Yeah, Daddy. They said because his parents are bad." Touya told him while Shouta poured creamer into his coffee and stirred it together.

"They are. They're very bad. They hurt Tenko a lot." He told them.

"What did they do, Dad?" Shoto asked.

"Well, boys, they sold really bad illegal drugs to their customers. And, since they're bad people, they let their customers pay to touch Tenko."

"To touch him? Like a hug?" Touya asked.

"No, a bad touch. Not like a hug. A very bad touch and it hurt tenko a lot." He explained. Hitoshi watched with wide eyes. Obviously Hitoshi understood it more than the twins, he'd heard of their job longer than Touya and Shoto.

"Is Tenko okay?" Shoto asked.

"Yeah, is he!?" Touya seemed teary, like he would lose control of his Quirk at any moment with the excessive emotional distress.

"I don't know, boys. We'll have to visit him." That seemed to calm Touya and, by extension, Shoto.

"Can I get something at the store for him first?" Hitoshi asked.

"Of course, Hito." Hizashi agreed.

"Thank you." Hitoshi went back to reading, something he was very proud that he could do so easily. He would easily excel all his English courses, curtosy of Hizashi teaching him to read just as soon as he could. Touya was close to being able to read by himself since they only had him for thirteen months and Hizashi had begun teaching him as a bonding therapy only seven months ago. Shoto was still struggling with reading some books that had writing on their left pages but he was very close to reading by himself as well.

So they all ate, got dressed, and went to the store. Hitoshi made a break for the toy section and was looking over cat plushies.

"It's gotta match his hair like ours. What's Tenko's hair color, Dad?" Hitoshi asked.

"Light blue." Touya picked up a powdery blue one.

"Blue." He told them, handing Aizawa the stuffed animal.

"Shoto, Touya, you should pick something out for Tenko too." Hizashi urged them. Touya led Shoto to the food section and Touya shrugged and picked up a couple umaibo while Shoto grabbed a box of building blocks. So they headed to the checkout and then to the hospital, checking in at the visitor's desk and got pointed toward Tenko's room. The blue haired boy was awake, talking with Sansa, who has a suppressor collar in his hands.

"It should fit. Are you sure, Tenko?" He asked. The boy nodded, allowing the metal around his neck, the red light blinking while Sansa adjusted it to sit correctly and then the green light came on with a light beep. Aizawa shook his head, remembering that feeling too well and looked to Sansa as the officer looked at him.

"Oh, hello, Eraserhead, Present Mic." Sansa greeted them.

"Hey, Sansa." Hizashi greeted him. Tenko's eyes got big before he looked away, red eyes hidden by his uneven pale blue hair.

"I'll get going. The Chief probably has more paperwork for me." Sansa told them, leaving while Shouta and Hizashi picked up Hitoshi and the twins and set them on Tenko's bed.

"Tenko, these are my sons, Touya, Shoto, and Hitoshi. They heard you got hurt and wanted got you some things." Shouta explained.

"Really?" The boy asked.

"Of course." Hitoshi told him before either adult could say anything. "I got you a plushie cat like mine, Sho's and Tou's. It matches your hair." Hitoshi explained. He held it out to the bluenette and, hesitantly, Tenko took it, fingers holding it close against his chest, eyes still hesitant but he looked like he trusted them.

"I got you umaibo. Papa gets them for us when we get sick and they make us feel better." Touya handed him the two different umaibo.

"Thank you."

"I got you building blocks. So you have something to do until you can leave." Shoto offered.

"Thank you." He was rather meek and he seemed timid, almost scared.

"You have a suppressor collar?" Hitoshi asked.

"I scared one of the nurses after she took my gloves off. So I asked for one from the nice kitty when I woke up." He held the stuffed cat close. Hizashi seemed amused. Aizawa could practically hear Hizashi asking him why all the kids they'd chosen, or rather fate had thrown at them, loved cats for some reason.

"You'll get control of it." Shoto assured him.

"I'll work on my control." Tenko promised, smiling. How could this tiny thing that hade been through so much smile still?

"Okay, I think Papa's gonna take you three to school. I'm gonna stay here and talk to Tenko." Aizawa told them.

"Do they have to go?" Tenko whispered.

"They do, but they'll come back and see you after they come back from school. I'm gonna stay here and talk to Tenko." Hizashi asked the three, who all agreed almost immediately.

"Okay, by Shoto, bye Touya, bye Hitoshi." He waved at them.

"Bye Tenko!" The three chorused while Hizashi led them out like ducklings. Shouta cracked a smile at his fiance getting followed like a mother duck with their ducklings.

"Now, Tenko. There are some things we need to talk about, okay?" Shouta hated getting right to it but Tenko seemed uncomfortable in the silence and he was too.

"About my parents?" He asked.

"Kind of." Tenko looked up at him oddly. "Your parents have lost custody of you so they can't take care of you anymore."

"Not that they did before." Wow, that was sure...something. Obviously the kid hated his parents.

"So, since you have no relatives besides them living, you'd be put in an orphanage or foster agency."

"But them I can't see you or Shoto and Touya and Hitoshi again." His eyes welled with tears.

"Tenko, if you want, me and my fiance could adopt you if you wanted. Hitoshi, Shoto, and Touya would be your brothers. Does that sound good?" He asked.

"I-I mean...i it doesn't bother you...or them." He was back to being shy again.

"Us being your dads and brothers wouldn't be a problem for us at all." He assured.

"Really?" He sat down on the bed with him.

"Yes really. And Tenko, do you wanna know something?" He nodded anxiously. "All three boys, Touya, Shoto, and Toshi? They were all adopted just like what I'm offering to you. Hitoshi's mom couldn't take care of him and gave him to me as a baby. Shoto and Touya, me and Hizashi found them a little over a year ago. They'd run away from home because their father's abusive and their mother burned them."

"They're yours? Even though you didn't have them?" Tenko asked.

"Of course they're mine. I wouldn't give up even one of them, ever." Tenko looked close to tears. "Adoption means that they want you and they'll protect you no matter what." Tenko sniffled, wiping his face with his hands.

"If it's okay." Tenko smiled shyly.

"It's perfectly fine, Tenko." He pulled him in to hug him.

Tenko settled against him, easily falling asleep with his cat plush toy still stuffed into his arms. Tenko was released from the hospital a week later after his wound had healed enough and he'd gained enough weight back that his doctors weren't as worried about him having to come back. The paperwork had been filed by the end of the week so they could take Tenko home upon his release. The first thing the boys had done was make a blanket fort with their new brother and fell asleep inside.

[crystalninjaphoenix]

Possessed: a Jacksepticeye Fan Fiction

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Part Three: Broken Homes

(Originally, this was going to be the last part, but it got much too long, so there should be one more)

Summary: The boys deal with the aftermath of Halloween night, and make a plan for the next day.

Warning, things get kinda upsetting in the first paragraph. Graphic description of stabbing and death. Skip if you’re sensitive.

The blood splattered on the floor, soaking easily into the rug. The victim choked, arms flailing weakly, trying to somehow staunch the flow from the wound on his neck. He’d only live a few moments more, but that was plenty of time to be in unimaginable pain. The killer dragged his knife along the victim’s stomach, splitting it open. The victim couldn’t scream, and only made a few small noises.The killer laughed hoarsely. He raised the knife and drove it into the victim’s chest. Then again. And again. Seven times he stabbed, the victim unable to stop him. But the killer was just as helpless. In his mind, he screamed over and over, silently begging the thing controlling him to stop, to put down the knife. But the thing only laughed, mocking him for being so weak, so powerless. He could do something, but instead he’s just watching it happen. If you want to stop it so badly, then do something. Cry out, call for help, scream in despair, say something, say anything, but you can’t, you can only watch...

Jameson jerked awake, breathing heavy. A nightmare. It was only a nightmare. But also a memory.

Sitting up, JJ tried to remember where he was. Sun was streaming through open windows. Everything was...clear. Much clearer than it had been for a long, long time. The events of the previous night suddenly came crashing down, bringing mixed emotions flooding with them. On the one hand, Jameson was free. Free from Anti’s influence, forever. On the other hand, decades had passed. Everyone he’d known and loved was probably dead. Friends, family, coworkers...

Jameson shook his head. He couldn’t bother these lovely people with all his troubles. What kind of repayment would that be, dumping all his trauma on the ones who’d rescued him? Actually...where were they?

JJ stood up. The screen from the night before—the TV—was turned off. A messy pile of blankets on the floor showed where Marvin had slept. The sound of friendly voices came from a nearby room. JJ wandered over and poked his head through the doorway.

It appeared to be the kitchen/dining room, though more advanced than the ones Jameson knew. The counter was covered in messy bowls and plates, jugs of milk and bottles of orange juice. A sliding glass door led outside to the backyard. Chase, Jackie, and Marvin—wearing the same outfits from the night before—were all present, Chase and Jackie arguing while Marvin sat at the dining table staring at a small black rectangle in his hand.

“I refuse to eat anything with blueberries in it,” Jackie said, folding his arms. “They’re fucking disgusting.”

“But you can’t take the chocolate chips!” Chase gasped. “The kids love them, and I’m almost out!”

“Alright, no chocolate, but keep those filthy little berries out of the batter. I’d rather eat the pancakes plain.”

“Or you could, you know, make two batches,” Marvin jumped in without looking up from the device in his hand.

“We didn’t make enough batter,” Chase explained. “And we don’t have ingredients for more.”

“Jesus Christ, Chase, what does it take to get you to go grocery shopping?” Jackie said, exasperated. “Any longer, and I’ll have to drag you to the shop by your toes.”

Jameson coughed, drawing the attention of everyone else. “Oh, you’re awake!” Jackie said, smiling cheerfully. “Great! Are you hungry? We made pancakes.”

JJ paused, taking in the mess on the kitchen counter. He raised an eyebrow.

“Well, we made the batter, at least,” Jackie amended. “Now we’re trying to decide if we want anything in it? D’you have any preferences?”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Chase rushed across the room, grabbed a notepad and pencil that was sitting on the table, and threw it to Jameson, who fumbled before catching it.

“Oh. Right. Sorry,” Jackie muttered, embarassed.

Jameson quickly wrote, No, it’s perfectly alright. We met each other just last night, after all.

“Don’t worry, I’ll remember,” Jackie assured him. “Now, d’you want anything with your pancakes?”

I’ll stick with the plain Jane variety, if you don’t mind.

“Got it.” Jackie turned to Chase and said triumphantly, “That’s two votes for no blueberries! That means we win!”

“I vote for blueberries,” Marvin said, waving his hand.

Jackie turned to him. “Oh, come on! We just reached a decision! Why do you always have to do this?”

“I like to fuck things up,” Marvin shrugged.

“Okay, you know what, we’re making both, we’ll figure it out,” Chase stepped in.

As Jackie and Chase set about making the pancakes, Jameson crossed the room and sat at the dining table, across from Marvin. “Hey, you ever seen a cell phone?” Marvin asked, waving the rectangular device he was holding. JJ shook his head. “It’s cool. Phones can do almost anything nowadays. And you can touch the screen. Check it out.”

Marvin handed the phone over, and watched as Jameson’s expression changed from puzzlement to wonder. “You can tap on the little icons to open shit,” Marvin said. “Not literally, of course. I dunno if that’s what you thought.” JJ tapped the screen a couple times, a small smile crossing his face. It lit up his face, and Marvin couldn’t help but smile back. When he wasn’t scared and traumatized, JJ was a right little ray of sunshine.

But in a split second, everything changed. Jameson’s smile fell, his face went white, and he dropped the phone on the table. “Whoa, what happened?” Marvin picked up the phone. He frowned. “It’s just glitching out a bit. My phone is kinda shitty like that. Are...are you okay?”

Jameson nodded, though he was still pale. Marvin wasn’t fooled at all, but he dropped it, changing the subject. “So, d’you have any idea where you want to stay?” he asked. “I mean, I guess you could crash with Chase for a couple days, but his kids come to visit on the weekends and I dunno if you want to meet them, or whatever. And Jackie’s apartment is pretty small. Have any ideas?”

A confused expression crossed JJ’s face. You didn’t suggest your own home in that list. Is it unavailable?

“No, ah, not exactly.” Marvin laughed nervously. “I guess if you wanna you could stay in my hotel room for a bit, but that’s not a, um, stable location. ‘Cause, you know, I don’t own it.”

If it’s not too rude to ask, why are you staying in a hotel and not your own home?

Before Marvin could answer—or think of a way to dodge the question—the other two provided a distraction. “Flip them now, Chase!” “I know how to make pancakes, discount Spider-Man!” “Not good pancakes! Flip ‘em!”

“Fucking hell, you two, why is cooking the thing that destroys your friendship?” Marvin said, exasperated.

“Who would’ve thought it came down to breakfast?” Chase sighed dramatically. Meanwhile, Jackie took advantage of his distraction to reach over and hurriedly flip the pancakes. “Hey! Don’t think I didn’t see that!” The two of them proceeded to wrestle over the spatula while standing next to a hot griddle.

“None of us are adults,” Marvin shook his head. “JJ, you better have some common sense, ‘cause this group really fucking needs it.”

I suppose that depends on your definition of ‘common sense.’

“Well, you can’t be any worse than the rest of us. Anyway, back to the question. Where d’you want to stay?”

Jameson hesitated, pencil frozen on paper. Then, slowly, This may sound absurd, but I would prefer to go home. My house, that is. I believe you know the place I am talking about.

Marvin frowned. “That...doesn’t sound like a good idea. Actually, it sounds like a terrible idea. A no-good, fucking horrible shitwreck of an idea, for so many reasons I’m gonna have to take a moment to process that you actually said it.”

“Pancakes are ready!” Chase said cheerfully, setting plates on the dining table. The buttery smell filled the room.

“And we got drinks, too,” Jackie added, carefully balancing a stack of glasses while holding a jug of milk and a bottle of orange juice.

“Be careful, Jackie,” Chase said, keeping an eye on the stack. “I don’t want to have broken glass on the floor when the kids come over.”

“Oh yeah, because you’re gonna leave any glass just on the floor for anyone to step on, for two whole days,” Jackie retorted. “Or, you know, like I’m gonna just not clean up my own mess. Anyway, there’s no need to worry, see?” He’d successfully set all four glasses on the table without dropping any.

“Oh hey, Jackie, can you explain to our new friend why it’s a fucking awful idea to go back and live in the old house where the evil creature is probably still lurking?” Marvin asked, overly polite.

Jackie looked at Jameson, puzzled. “Is that really true?”

JJ thought about it, then wrote, I don’t know where else I would go.

“Well, any of us would be happy to take you in,” Jackie assured him. “But if you really want to, I don’t think we can stop you.”

“Wha-what?” Marvin spluttered. “Okay, never mind the malicious, homicidal, supernatural entity. How about the fact that the place is a shithole that’s falling apart with holes in the floor? And there’s no food or place to sleep anywhere?”

“We can make it work,” Jackie said positively. “It can’t be too hard to fix up. And besides, it’s not like we can force Jameson to stay here, can we?”

Marvin looked like he very much wanted to do exactly that. Luckily, Chase saw the warning signs and jumped in with a solution, “Hey, how ‘bout we all go there together and check it out? Then we can see if there’s anything evil there, and how much of a fixer-upper it is.”

Recognizing the line Chase was throwing him, and not wanting to fight with Marvin, Jackie agreed, “That’s a great idea, Chase. And if anything goes wrong, we’ll have each others’ backs. You know, like a team. Eh, Marvin?”

The magician sighed. “Alright, I guess it can’t hurt. But let’s go after breakfast, okay?”

[taule]

Maul, part I: Broken Boys - early life trauma, survival & Ben Solo parallels

This is going to be an evolving meta that will be posted in a series of installments as I make my way through the various sources piecing the picture together and also attempt to tackle the various themes that pull at my heartstrings. I haven’t attempted to write anything in quite this way before, so there will be inevitable cross-referencing happening and it’s likely that I will come back to certain things later on.

There is something that stood out to me right away, as I started reading The Wrath of Darth Maul, and those are Ben Solo parallels. That doesn’t mean that I equate them in any way, but it does point to certain circumstantial factors that shaped their lives and I believe that what we know about them individually can inform us about the other. 

In both of them we see the effects of what it means to be a victim of the Dark side. The destruction of an innocent, impressionable mind being subjected to unimaginable, systematic cruelty with no protection and no hope of escape. Being taught that everything happening to them is their own doing, and a just punishment. They are the Lost Boys. Both their lives could have been very different and neither went down a path they laid for themselves through choice. And in Maul, especially, the connection to the Dark side is not an inherent one, and was about his environment and matter of birth, more so than something he manifested independently, in contrast to what we know of Ben, whose internal conflict had been apparent from the beginning. 

My interest and inspiration here is to look at how the loss, trauma, deprivation, enduring compassion and capacity for love come together and fit into place in the making of this man. I don’t plan to descend into proper psychoanalysis, but to try and open Maul’s path and mind through some of what we know about Ben, who has been presented as a much more sympathetic character. In fact, hardly as a villain at all. And although I already said that I don’t equate them, I hope to show that the patterns and psychology of it is very similar, even if circumstances differ.

A major difference between Maul and Ben though, is the age at which they began their training, and the fact that Maul was trained to use the Force as a darksider from the start. But the way that the Dark side methods and cruelty in his training contrast with his curious and accepting nature shows that while Darth Sidious took him for his strength in the Force, the same way that Snoke singled out Ben, the darkness wasn’t inherently dominating over the potential for Light in either of them. The question of age definitely plays into this matter, because Ben started training unusually late, and Maul on the other hand very early, and so he wasn’t old enough to have yet started manifesting the imbalance or struggle between Light and Dark the way Ben did.

Unfortunately a lot of the material that has provided information on Maul’s early life has been pushed to the Legends with the Disney acquisition. Which is a shame. Because that material was a source for a lot of insight. I’m not going to shy away from using it as a source here though, because it still shows the original intention in his depiction. And there is very little material that has come later that has overwritten any of what came before. It has mostly just left a hole.

But there are some inconsistencies that derive from the rebranding and restructuring because of later-established sources that no longer had to be consistent with published material. To me, one of the most important ones is the circumstance of his birth. 

The earlier information ( Darth Plagueis, 2012 ) reveals that Maul was born on Iridonia, as one of two male twins to Kycina, a human Nightsister mother from Talzin’s clan, and a Dathomirian Zabrak father that by Dathomirian tradition was killed soon after she became pregnant. Kycina was desperate to find a way to give at least one of her sons a life of freedom. Thinking Talzin was only aware of one of her twins, she offered Maul to Sidious to take as an apprentice, hoping that this would at least give her son a chance of a life free of the fate that awaited him on Dathomir.

The later version goes into no such detail of the circumstance of his birth that I have been able to discern, and it is merely established that Talzin was mother to all three boys (including Savage). And that Sidious had formed an alliance with Talzin, having promised to take her as his apprentice in return for her knowledge. It is when Sidious met Maul and sensed his strength in the Force that he not only broke his promise to Talzin, but also kidnapped her “son”. 

Personally, I remain loyal to the original version. Not only does it answer more questions, but I believe that it offers us valuable insight. I’m sure it was no small amount of consideration that went into giving such an iconic character a backstory. And for it to be imagined in this way tells us quite a bit about how the creators wanted him to be perceived, at least by those who would seek that understanding.

Not to mention the fact that there is no plausible child-parent relationship depicted between Maul and Talzin. And to insist that he’s her son would also mean to accept that this mother did nothing to aid this son of hers who was withering away on Lotho Minor... not before it became convenient and useful for her at least.

And as it is a certain development that Im trying to observe here, chronology is relevant to it. So in the following I’m going to look at the backstory that The Wrath of Darth Maul paints us, starting from his early years in captivity on Mustafar. 

Maul was only 3 or even two at the time, considering that he has already been on Mustafar for a while by the time the book starts. Page 1 of chapter I describes where, and importantly how he is being kept. In a small, featureless room, made of metal. With a single polarized viewport overlooking a river of lava leading to a sea of fire. He was completely isolated and left without any meaningful social interaction. A single droid looked after him, simultaneously serving the functions of his caretaker, teacher and punisher. The very second page in chapter I establishes how little Maul wishes he could escape this place.

He was left in complete emotional and social deprivation. Fed bits of raw meat through a slot in the door that remained shut. Then, forced to exercise until point of collapse. Let’snot forget that this is a toddler that we are talking about. Windham repeatedly emphasizes how small he is. For example, how his feet “only extend a few centimeters over the edge of a seat”.

We are introduced to the circumstance through a frightened child’s eyes. Trying to figure out how to behave in the right way that does not grant punishment. He is being actively conditioned in the most awful, cruel ways. Something that has been (with less written evidence) noted about Ben and the way in which it shaped his thinking for years to come, leaving behind marks that he may never entirely recover from.

“Maul hated the Man even more than he hated the droid. The Man frightened him.”

The book doesn’t describe the first few times that Maul met Sidious, but only that his fear of him was greater than that he felt for the droid that routinely hurt him. 

“Usually, the droid brought pain. Once, the droid had delivered a bright green and yellow snake that wasted no time in attacking Maul, sinking its venomous fangs deep into the boy’s arm.”

“One of the first things he learned was not to cry. Crying never made anything better. Crying only made things worse.”

So these two quotes above should give an adequate idea about what his early childhood boiled down to. Not that we can really call this a childhood. Mind you, this is only from the first pages of chapter one so far, and his training, which is in reality conditioning, only became crueler as he grew. The objective was quite clearly to break him down completely, so he could be put back together in ways that served the abuser’s intended purpose. But there’s nothing vague about all the abuse he’s been described to go through. I wont be including the most graphic depictions of abuse here, but let me tell you it wasn’t easy to read.

I feel it’s been somewhat acknowledged that Maul has a backstory, and that there’s certain tragedy to it. But I’m just not sure in what depth it’s been looked at. And there’s the inevitable difference between how the origin story of the hero vs the villain is looked upon. Regardless of whether the dichotomy is really carved into stone in such a way, as long as it is perceived, it is also applied. 

That also extends to the sympathy with which their lives are viewed. I think we have an interesting case in Ben, because people obviously can’t agree on it. We’ve been sent mixed signals, and we can see how that has changed our perception of his becoming, and our willingness to see him as a victim. Because on one hand there’s the way that he has been initially presented as a villain (even though not explicitly defining him that way) and then there’s his ever-expanding backstory that explains how things ended up that way. And it’s the how that has the power to change... everything. Because it has the power to bring understanding which in turn inspires sympathy, that enables a shift in responsibility. Which can change how we view something to the very core.

“More than ever, Maul wished he were the free-floating boy who appeared to exist beyond the window in his own room. He tried very hard not to tremble as he slowly turned and looked up to face the Man.”

His wish to escape has been mentioned multiple times. And it’s more than about setting the tone, the feeling. It’s confirming over and over that this child didn’t choose this path or fate. Depending on whether we follow the original or the later version, he was either given up by his mother in hopes that this would be better than what awaited on Dathomir, or he was kidnapped. In either case, not there by any choice of his own.

“But he survived.”

And I think this is quite clearly establishes that it’s mightily unfair to talk about choices here. What we’re talking about is survival. Once it becomes about survival, it’s what reframes everything else involved, because we’ve stopped talking about choices. I guess what I’m arguing here is that if we can agree that Ben Solo was a victim of the Dark side, of abuse, conditioning and manipulation, Maul most definitely is. Not only were his circumstances likely far more severe, but he had not known a life outside of it. He had no point of reference for what the alternative could even be and no moral framework outside of avoiding cruel punishment. 

[saferincages]

a couple of weeks ago, a friend showed me this amazing post (where the photos are far better than mine, which just didn’t want to turn out at all) of @the-far-bright-center‘s beautiful, sparkly Force Ghost Anakin, and it brought me such joy (I was maybe giggling excessively...), and today he arrived in the mail as a surprise gift! 💖

I want to take a moment to appreciate this bio, and the “weapon of choice” being loyalty and love, because it is. a lot.

this could be a very silly post (okay, it already is), but it actually gives me an opportunity to talk about something that I’ve never had a chance or reason to discuss before without some frame of context, so here is an unbelievably overemotional story (one of many regarding Star Wars’ history and special place in my life, I could write a series of these focused of specific themes and characters in all honesty) that no one really needs, but that I feel compelled to write anyway.

I’ve written before about my first experience seeing Revenge of the Sith (most recently here), so I apologize for retreading a certain amount of ground, but it’s important to know what the state of my life was at that time, which was a frightening, burned out shambles. ROTS premiered in May 2005, I believe I had just completed the physical therapy I’d been undergoing since the car accident we had that February. I was extraordinarily ill, and no one knew why (diagnoses were forthcoming), I was rapidly losing weight, and at the time, the scariest thing for me, was that I had no choice but to withdraw from school. Academia, which was such a constant for me, wasn’t even going to be on the horizon. I was, in short, not okay. I felt almost hollow in that uncertainty.

That midnight premiere was incredible, exciting, emotionally fraught, and I remember the weight and the sorrow of it hitting me in a very profound way when we got home, at which point I crawled into my bed and sobbed. I saw it several times that summer, but the final time (which is also a story a couple of my friends know, but I don’t think I’ve posted about it publicly?) was on my birthday that September. It is a crystalline memory. I can recall everything about that day, even what we ate (the cinnamon rolls my mom made for breakfast, the vanilla chai tea I had at Borders that afternoon), because it was the last birthday I had when certain things were not yet permanent, when I was still in the misty place between before and after. By then, the film had moved to our local little budget theatre, and seeing it that way, with a handful of other people rather than with a big, enthusiastic crowd, lent it an intimacy and poignancy which struck me on a wholly different level. (That was also the night Supernatural premiered, which is an aside, but don’t doubt for a moment that the events are inextricably emotionally connected for me.) September, and I should have been in school, but I wasn’t. I had no idea at that point that I never would be again, but I was frightened, and sad, and deeply angry. Anger isn’t a feeling I’d had a lot of experience with, I was a sweet, shy, overly sensitive, naive child (and teenager), but I didn’t often deal with anger, and then I usually sublimated anger with grief and guilt instead (and those things were warring in me, too, and of course I still carry them), but the anger at the unfairness of it all, at how cruel it was that this had happened to me, at how much I hated my own body for turning against me, how I irrationally hated myself for not being better or stronger or able to fight it, was consuming and yet almost childish, as though being ill was causing a perpetual temper tantrum in my mind.

My touchstone in the prequels was always Padmé, and she deserves her own post, but she was so inspiring to me, her compassion and her goodness and her belief in justice, her loving nature and her femininity and her tender heart being strengths, and never undermining her bright spirit, her keen mind, her ability to lead, her powers being her forgiveness and empathy and kindness. I love her so much and she had (and continues to have) such meaning for me. 

It took me by surprise when the aching heart of my identification in ROTS plunged more towards Anakin. I loved him too, and I had a lot of varied, complicated feelings about him already, about his gentleness and his trauma, about the immensity of his capacities and his contrasts, but this was the fall, the dark hour of the story, the nadir of everyone’s suffering, and so much happens at his hand, because of his tragic choices. When I was reading the novelization, I didn’t know what to do with the fact that I understood certain aspects of his struggling in such a harrowing way, and seeing it playing out made that even more acute. Those choices he makes out of desperate fear aren’t rooted in evil, they’re driven by the chasm of grief and terror of loss, and they’re mixed with disillusionment and disappointment and frustration. Up until the moment when he walks into the Jedi Temple, when we really see him cross a line he cannot return from, hope for a course correction seems possible. Even knowing what’s coming, it’s like...just turn back. You can still fix this. It ripped my heart out because of course he wouldn’t, he couldn’t. There’s the scene where he’s denied the title of Master, and his outburst at the council (“this is outrageous! it’s unfair!”) is tinged with an adolescent level of upset, but...of course it is. He’s still so young and he wants to trust them, it’s not ambition causing that fury, it’s desperation for inclusion, for some measure of respect, and he keeps being refused. It’s a strange analogy because the things holding me back had nothing to do with a council of old men deciding my fate, all my hindrances were physically trapping me in my own body, the jury denying me the ability to move ahead was my own failing immune system, but I understood his rage, because I wanted someone I could yell at. The person I was so terrified of not being able to save, of having to watch die, wasn’t my beloved, it was...me, the girl I was, the girl I dreamed of becoming. I’ve talked so many times about feeling like I let her down, like I’m the ghost of her, the revenant walking around in a shape that vaguely resembles her, but at that point, she wasn’t gone yet, she was just rapidly slipping away. I didn’t know what to do to save myself. People would say it wasn’t my fault, to let it go (which felt a lot like being told the useless “mourn them do not, miss them do not”), that I was still here, I didn’t ask to get sick, and I knew, logically, that was true, but emotionally all I felt was that crushing guilt and despair (all of this remains a lingering struggle). I didn’t want to be powerless. I would have clung to something that offered me a way out. I knew where Anakin, conflicted and misguided as he was, was coming from, and it eroded everything that made him good and heroic and kind, so the only power I had left was to fight against it and keep the anger at bay.

This is such a specifically personal thing that I won’t get into the analysis of what happens in regards to his descent (which I also expounded upon in that other post anyway), but every time it happened, the same muscle memory seemed to take hold of me, my hands would shake and I’d press them together, my chest would pound, I’d bite my lip to try not to cry. I have this overwhelming fear of fire, so Mustafar was its own nightmare, and I’ve literally only watched the immolation scene once (that first time, at the midnight showing), otherwise I close my eyes tightly shut. I don’t even like seeing gifs of it. But because of what I was going through at the time, what I’ve gone through since, the physical aspects of him so painfully and horrifically losing himself, being so stripped of his humanity that hardly anyone ever looks at or acknowledges him as a person again (until Luke) held its own terror (it’s such an awful metaphor when it’s examined, and it’s that re-enslavement, he did not choose that reconstruction) because I didn’t understand what was happening to me physically, and because so many people were questioning the veracity of my pain and my incapacitating illness, were treating me as somehow less (ableism wasn’t even a word in my vocabulary yet, I just thought maybe everyone had a point and I didn’t deserve the space to be heard or understood, since so much of what I was going through was invisible). I genuinely felt like my personhood and my agency was being taken away. I didn’t have school, I was quickly isolated from everyone else and kept in the (comforting yet confining) cage of my room, I didn’t know who I was supposed to be anymore, and I didn’t know what to do if no one would listen or believe me (my mom aside). The torture Anakin is put through in that conversion to Darth Vader is unimaginable and I don’t want to dwell on it, but there’s a passage from the novelization that goes in part: “The first dawn of light in your universe brings pain. The light burns you. It will always burn you...You can hear yourself breathing. It comes hard, and harsh, and it scrapes nerves already raw, but you cannot stop it. You can never stop it. You cannot even slow it down...now your self is all you will ever have...and within your furnace heart, you burn in your own flame.” It’s such a wrenching description that some part of me separated it out from the villainous aspect, because the rest of it felt true. My nerves were raw and burned with sensation, touch and too much strain hurt, but my heart persistently, stubbornly kept beating, and I was left sifting through the alternating aspects of its passions (both the transcendent and the desolate).

This isn’t at all “excuse or justify the things Vader did” (since, again, this isn’t actual analysis, it’s sentimental personal nonsense), because of course I do not and never would, but the depth of empathy I had for Anakin, as a person and as a lost soul (and a lost future), and the way that left an imprint on me right at the onset of my illness became indelible.

There’s a point to this, I promise.

George Lucas did re-editing and reworkings of the original trilogy and I’ve never minded any of it, because they were his to edit and fix up if he wanted to do so, and little extra CG snippets of planets and creatures only expands the universe in my mind. That said, I realize adding Hayden’s Anakin at the end of Return of the Jedi was divisive, even upsetting for some, but for me it was everything. I’ve hesitated to ever reblog gifs of the scene because I felt like I had to justify or explain why I hold it so dear before I did, so this is my chance to do that. 

As a child, I never felt really connected to the fleeting glimpse of Sebastian Shaw (my mom actually remembers me asking why he was so “old,” apparently I reasoned at the time that Anakin should have been younger, I think because I imagined him then as more of a dashing hero, based on Obi-Wan’s description in A New Hope). Anakin never lived as that image of a more middle aged man, that was never who he was within Vader’s suit, and there was always an evincive resonance that I was seeking. Once Attack of the Clones came along, Hayden was my Anakin, he was the embodiment of that character, and I loved him, and I loved his performance (and saw so much nuance and layering in it despite what was often said). Yet one of the last images we witness of him is burning on that scorched lava shore. It’s devastating. 

Luke’s unwavering faith that some glimmer of his father still exists, that goodness can’t ever be entirely erased, that love will overcome, that throwing aside his weapon is an act of bravery and grace, is the moment when Anakin is finally released from that. “He takes the ounce of good still left in him and destroys the Emperor out of compassion for his son.” Balance is restored, and redemption is very small and quiet, not a washing away of violence, but a ceasing of it. It’s the hope that we can always find salvation, that we can still choose to act in love.

When Luke turns around and sees those spirits watching over him, benevolent and glowing and one with the Force, Anakin is his beautiful self again, as the description on this little package says, restored to the “hopeful young Jedi he once was.” The first time I saw that edit of the film, I wept. That was the connection I’d been looking for, the understanding that we’re never wasted, that our souls endure and are mended, that we can choose light, no matter how lost we feel we are, that love can persevere and illuminate even the longest night. It reminded me that I wasn’t only my body, no matter how much it hurt, no matter how it felt like it was collapsing on me, no matter how often I felt like I was failing to be the person I thought I would be, my body could never capture the entirety of who I was, or am. My spirit could still shine, my heart could still be soft.

Anakin says to Padmé in AOTC, “Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is essential to a Jedi's life, so you might say we are encouraged to love.” It’s one of my favorite scenes because it’s so sincere, and yet so richly layered in its meaning. And in the end, this is fulfilled, this belief is proven right.

People may think the idea of the Force is hokey, but because of the way I was brought up, and the intense theological discussions that used to be framed around it (particularly by my dad, we used to do this over e-mail back in the olden days of dial-up, I wish I had those conversations saved), it was a really important, formative concept for me. The Force is connectivity, it’s like a variant of the belief in Tikkun olam that parts of the vessels of the divine used to shape the world shattered, and their shards became sparks of light trapped within the material of creation, and thus exist and persist in all of us, in all the diverse and breathtaking life around us, and that we should respect and cherish that life. “The best expression of the Force is not a lightsaber fight or other combat techniques. It’s really about your connection to life, to everything around you, and your ability or willingness to let go, to find peace, and ultimately become a selfless part of existence...in the end there is no power that aids [Luke], except the power of compassion and love; the act of forgiveness and apparent self-sacrifice is what saves his father from the dark side.” 

It’s the idea that there’s something eternal within all living things, something powerful and connected that binds us together, that means we affect one another, and that we make choices as to whether those influences are for the better (or not). That we can decide to increase the power of light and warm energy in the universe. The idea that we’re not limited to our physical selves, that we’re luminous, radiant, possible beings. That we can reach out in love and compassion to heal the world, even if it’s only in small ways, even if we’re the only ones who see it exist, who know it happens, and still the summation of that additional light can radiate everywhere.

[hollywoodjuliorivas]

Cover Photo Credit Brooke Smart The Opinion Pages | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Sheryl Sandberg: How to Build Resilient Kids, Even After a Loss After my husband’s death, I set out to learn everything I could about how kids persevere through adversity. By SHERYL SANDBERGAPRIL 24, 2017 Continue reading the main storyShare This Page Share Tweet Email More Save Two years ago, in an instant, everything changed for my family and me. While my husband, Dave, and I were on vacation, he died suddenly from a cardiac arrhythmia. Flying home to tell my 7-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son that their father had died was the worst experience of my life. During that unimaginable trip, I turned for advice to a friend who counsels grieving children. She said that the most important thing was to tell my kids over and over how much I loved them and that they were not alone. In the fog of those early and brutal weeks and months, I tried to use the guidance she had given me. My biggest fear was that my children’s happiness would be destroyed by our devastating loss. I needed to know what, if anything, I could do to get them through this. I also started talking with my friend Adam Grant, a psychologist and professor who studies how people find motivation and meaning. Together, we set out to learn everything we could about how kids persevere through adversity. Continue reading the main story ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story As parents, teachers and caregivers, we all want to raise resilient kids — to develop their strength so they can overcome obstacles big and small. Resilience leads to better health, greater happiness and more success. The good news is that resilience isn’t a fixed personality trait; we’re not born with a set amount of it. Resilience is a muscle we can help kids build. And every kid faces challenges. Some stumbles are part of growing up. Forgetting lines in a school play. Failing a test. Losing a big game. Seeing a friendship unravel. Other hardships are far more severe. Two out of 10 children in the United States live in poverty. More than 2.5 million kids have a parent in jail, and many endure serious illness, neglect, abuse or homelessness. We know that the trauma from experiences like these can last a lifetime; extreme harm and deprivation can impede a child’s intellectual, social, emotional and academic progress. As a society, we owe all our children safety, support, opportunity and help finding a way forward. We can start by showing children that they matter. Sociologists define “mattering” as the belief that other people notice you, care about you and rely on you. It’s the answer to a vital question that all children ask about their place in the world starting as toddlers, and continuing into and beyond adolescence: Do I make a difference to others? When the answer is no, kids feel rejected and alone. They become more prone to self-destructive (“Hurting myself isn’t a big deal, since I don’t count anyway”) and antisocial behaviors (“I might be doing something bad, but at least I’ve got your attention”). Others withdraw. Not long ago, a friend picked up her son from a summer day camp and found him beaming with pride that he’d finished the robot he’d spent two days building. The next morning, he returned to find his robot had been destroyed: Bullies had taken only his apart — and then told him that he was worthless. After that day, his mother watched him sink into a spiral of anxiety and depression. Even when he went back to school in the fall, she recalled, “he’d put on his hoodie and sit in the back, in his own world.” Adolescents who feel that they matter are less likely to suffer from depression, low self-esteem and suicidal thoughts. They’re less likely to lash out at their families and engage in rebellious, illegal and harmful behaviors. Once they reach college, they have better mental health. Opinion Today Every weekday, get thought-provoking commentary from Op-Ed columnists, The Times editorial board and contributing writers from around the world. Sign Up Receive occasional updates and special offers for The New York Times's products and services. SEE SAMPLE MANAGE EMAIL PREFERENCES PRIVACY POLICY As parents, we sometimes feel helpless because it’s impossible to solve our children’s problems. In those situations, we can still provide support by “companioning” — walking alongside them and listening. Adam told me about evidence-based programs at Arizona State University that help families cope with parental loss and divorce. These programs teach parents to create and maintain warm and strong relationships, communicate openly with children, use effective discipline, avoid depression and help their children develop coping skills and strategies. When families participate in these programs for 10 to 12 sessions, over the next six years children have fewer mental-health and substance-abuse problems, higher grades and better biological stress responses. One afternoon, I sat down with my kids to write out “family rules” to remind us of the coping mechanisms we would need. We wrote together that it’s O.K. to be sad and to take a break from any activity to cry. It’s O.K. to be happy and laugh. It’s O.K. to be angry and jealous of friends and cousins who still have fathers. It’s O.K. to say to anyone that we do not want to talk about it now. And it’s always O.K. to ask for help. The poster we made that day — with the rules written by my kids in colored markers — still hangs in our hall so we can look at it every day. It reminds us that our feelings matter and that we are not alone. Dave and I had a tradition at the dinner table with our kids in which each of us would share the best and worst moments of our day. Giving children undivided attention — something we all know is important but often fail to do — is another of the key steps toward building their resilience. My children and I have continued this tradition, and now we also share something that makes us feel grateful to remind ourselves that even after loss, there is still so much to appreciate in life. For my friend’s son whose robot was destroyed, a turning point came when one of his former teachers got in touch to see how he was doing and started spending time with him every week. She encouraged him to reach out to other kids and make friends, then followed up, reinforcing each step he took. She cared. He mattered. When a new kid started at the school, the teacher encouraged them to get together, and the friendship took. “It made such a difference for a teacher to take an interest in him and a friend to bond with him,” his mom said. “It was like the sun came out in our house.” ADVERTISEMENT Continue reading the main story Since my children were so young when they lost their father, I am afraid that their memories of him will fade, and this breaks my heart all over again. Adam and I also learned that talking about the past can build resilience. When children grow up with a strong understanding of their family’s history — where their grandparents grew up, what their parents’ childhoods were like — they have better coping skills and a stronger sense of mattering and belonging. Jamie Pennebaker, a psychologist at the University of Texas, has found that expressing painful memories can be uncomfortable in the moment, but improves mental and even physical health over time. To keep Dave’s memory alive, I asked dozens of his closest family members, friends and colleagues to capture their stories about him on video. I also taped my children sharing their own memories, so that as they grow up, they will know which are truly theirs. This past Thanksgiving my daughter was distraught, and when I got her to open up, she told me, “I’m forgetting Daddy because I haven’t seen him for so long.” We watched the video of her talking about him, and it gave her some comfort. Talking openly about memories — not just positive ones, but difficult ones, too — can help kids make sense of their past and rise to future challenges. It’s especially powerful to share stories about how the family sticks together through good times and bad, which allows kids to feel that they are connected to something larger than themselves. Studies show that giving all members of the family a chance to tell their version builds self-esteem, particularly for girls. And making sure to integrate different perspectives into a coherent story builds a sense of control, particularly for boys. 117 COMMENTS A friend of mine who lost his mother when he was young told me that over time, she no longer seemed real. People were either afraid to mention her or spoke of her in idealized terms. My hope is to hold on to Dave as he really was: loving, generous, brilliant, funny and also pretty clumsy. He would spill things constantly yet was always somehow shocked when he did. Now, when emotions are running high in our house, but my son stays calm, I tell him, “You are just like your daddy.” When my daughter stands up for a classmate who is getting picked on, I say, “Just like your daddy.” And when either of them knocks a glass over, I say it, too. Sheryl Sandberg is the author, with Adam Grant, of “Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy,” from which this essay is adapted. Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter. A version of this op-ed appears in print on April 24, 2017, on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: How to Build Resilient Kids, Even After a Loss. Today's Paper|Subscribe Continue reading the main story