#i did anticipate people claiming i was being contradictory before

[thebreakfastgenie]

Since this has come up again I gotta say I disagree with you about the use of the word. I think it’s bizarre to call it a slur that is extremely offensive to use and then also say it’s been “defanged” in the same breath. I also think it’s strange that I’m sure I have seen you reblogging posts about why people ID with slurs but then you also say that use of slurs is just “edgy” and “white noise”.

I assume you’re not really interested in a good faith discussion about it but the gist of it in my opinion is as follows.

1. Many people have had these slurs weaponised against them and using them in a casual context or self-identifying with them allows them to reclaim them in a positive way and take away the power of them. I.e. this isn’t a scary word because it was shouted out a car window at me or used by the person who assaulted me. I am not scared of this word. This word is who I am and I am okay with that.

2. Some people find that words commonly used as slurs feel more true to their experience than the polite, socially acceptable versions of the words. This can be for a variety of reasons but one I’ve commonly seen is that they feel as though the softer word is shying away from how they identify rather than facing it head on.

3. It can be a way to make people pay attention and get your point across. This can be wielded politically like in protests or pride parades or in pseudo political protests like online calls to action. As in, “the people who hate me call me a [slur]; well, this [slur] has something to say”.

4. Some people feel rubbed the wrong way by rainbow marketing (I.e. big corporations putting rainbows on things in June and talking about how inclusive they are while not actually doing anything meaningful to support the community and sometimes actively working against them in other ways, purely in the interest of getting the gay dollar) and like to self identify with words that squeaky clean corporations are never going to sell back to them.

This is not an exhaustive list, but it covers a few of the common reasons that I have seen. And it’s certainly not just the f word for gay men that gets used this way. Consider Alison Bechdel’s Dykes To Watch Out For, a piece of lgbt pop culture so entrenched that the term “the Bechdel test” is commonly used in media criticism. It certainly wouldn’t have been improved, in my opinion, by being named “Lesbians to Watch Out For”.

I think I was pretty clear that a word can be defanged in one context and remain a harmful slur in the other. The crux of my issue with using that word is that I do not know how it is being used when a stranger says it to me. As I have mentioned before, I live with two gay men, one of whom does use that word, and when he does it I am comfortable with it because I know him and I know the context in which it is being invoked.

I do not know that context online and I am not going to assume a stranger on the internet is a safe community member just because "tumblr is the gay website." First of all, it isn't, and I don't make a habit of assuming strangers' sexual orientations without strong contextual reasons to do so (e.g. gay bars, and even there it's not a guarantee). Secondly, people can be members of the community and still use slurs inappropriately.

I do not feel that everyone who is using slurs on tumblr is reclaiming them in any meaningful way. It looks much more like this is the cool new word, like a bunch of second-graders who just heard the word fuck for the first time. This is why I talked about it being defanged. My reference to white noise was because the word "gay" has been overused so much on this website (e.g. "gay little [x]") that it barely means anything anymore. It's practically a filler word. The alternative used to be "queer," but now that's been overused and sanitized because it was adopted by the mainstream and corporations found it. People picked up on "fruity" for whatever reason, probably because it's a bit old-fashioned and not used much by serious homophobes anymore, and also just sounds kind of funny. And that was quickly overused, the way memes are run into the ground.

But here's the thing: there is no word that is safe from rainbow marketing. There isn't. Maybe they would never use f*ggot now. Give it time. If you want to outrun mainstream society, you will always be hopping to a different word. Especially with the internet. People become desensitized very quickly to memetic language, simply due to saturation.

Tumblr users did not reclaim f*ggot. They turned it into a meme. They did the same thing with the limp wrist. And yes, gay people do these things with each other. In private. In gay spaces. Not on the public internet. Even if tumblr were a gay website (it's not) content from this site ends up on twitter, instagram, tiktok, and facebook. I do believe the use of slurs on this website is edgy. I won't speak for individuals, but as a trend it is at least partially motivated by being cool and getting clout. My point in saying it had been defanged was it was no longer accomplishing its purported goal of reclamation. Some of the reasons you listed for using slurs--facing things head-on etc.--rely on shock factor, and therefore have a naturally limited lifespan. People still say "queer as in fuck you," but when queer is the standard academic term and has been adopted by mainstream institutions, does it really hit the same way?

Each slur has its own history. I'm a fan of Dykes to Watch Out For. I attended a Dyke March last year. I am personally uncomfortable with f*ggot because unlike other slurs, I have personally experienced this one being used by homophobes. I think it was fairly popular in the United States in the 2000s, so many people have this experience, and therefore it is still more strongly associated with homophobia. This is still true outside tumblr, regardless of the defanging I observed here.

I am concerned about the eagerness of some to use slurs and engage in "ironic" homophobia (e.g. limp wrist) at a time when many countries are facing such a serious homophobic and transphobic backlash. I am concerned about slurs for the LGBT+ community in particular, because the idea of "who can reclaim them" is more fluid than with racial slurs and many other slurs. Someone can be raised in a homophobic environment and be a homophobe who calls people f*ggots, then come out as gay themselves and continue calling people f*aggots but it's "okay" now, whether or not they ever had any self-reflection about it. I am not accusing specific people of following this exact path, but this pattern is responsible for a lot of internalized and intracommunity homophobia.

I do believe that reclaimation is a conscious, active process. A lot of talk about reclaiming words on tumblr sounds like Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy: I didn't say it, I declared it.

I hope I've explained my opinion a little bit here. Contrary to your assumptions, I am interested in a good faith discussion. The person who asked if they could call me a f*ggot was not.

[s-brant]

Cherry Bowl (3/8)

(gif: @kiekiecarrera) (PART TWO) (PART FOUR) (SERIES MASTERLIST)

Summary: When Kie cancels their plans together, Y/N asks JJ on a date to the Cherry Bowl Drive-In. Unsure of how to navigate his first ever date, JJ seeks out advice. Unfortunately, the night doesn’t go as planned, and both parties are left shaken by miscommunication.

Word Count: 10.6k

Warnings: Smut, public sex/exhibitionism, sexual choking, angst, depictions of mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, and implied/referenced abuse.

A/N: Welcome back to Tokens! Slight trouble in paradise is brewing for these two lovers, so buckle up and read because it’s gonna be a rollercoster for a little while after what happens in this chapter. I hope you all like it, and if you did, feedback is very appreciated. Have fun!

"I'm just saying that oatmeal raisin is superior to chocolate chip, why is that such an egregious crime, Kie?"

The lunch room is filled to the brim with students going to town on questionably cooked frozen foods, soggy tater tots, and sugary drinks from the vending machines despite the Obama-era posters on the walls advocating for healthier school lunches that never seemed to make their way to Kildare County High. The extent of their healthy lunches extended to a serving of overcooked canned green beans served with the worst slice of doughy pizza known to human kind, so it was sort of contradictory.

Y/N sits across the table from Pope and JJ, the latter of which being the one who launched into a full-fledged debate with Kiara about which type of cookie was better.

The clear cling wrap sits, unfolded, on the table with one of her stickers neatly placed on the back of it. As consolation for his epic loss yesterday at the beach, she paid an extra .75 cents to get him it when she arrived first to their shared lunch period—one of only two class periods they have together, the other being gym. He was still in line when she peeled a surfboard sticker off of her sheet and placed it at the center of the wrapped up cookie as if to remind him of her triumph over him in the waves.

"Thanks, hot stuff," he said, voice somewhat quieter despite the fact that hardly anyone was in the cafeteria with them. Then his smile dropped into an deadpan expression as soon as he saw her choice of sticker and looked back up at her. "You're never gonna let me live that one down, are you?"

"Never in a million years. I'll be gloating about it until I'm elderly."

"That's my girl."

The sound of the constant chatter surrounding them from at least two hundred other people drowns out the memories of yesterday that threaten to haunt her when she watches him debate with Kie. The mere recollection of their night in the back of the van has her reaching to pull the collar of her cropped tee up to assure that the hickeys remain hidden on instinct, and he catches the action out of the corner of his eye. It has him fighting a smile.

Kie quips, "Maybe on another planet, but, here, I think we can all agree chocolate chip is better, right Y/N?"

Y/N's eyes widen around a forkful of mushy "green beans" at the sound of her name being said bringing her from the depths of her memories.

Usually, she's quick to jump in and give her two cents on whatever stupid back and forth they're all having, but her mind was elsewhere. Unbeknownst to Kie and Pope, she was mentally reliving every second of getting fucked in the van last night, so her attention to detail when it comes to the Chocolate Chip vs Oatmeal Raisin case isn't all too sharp.

"Uhhh," she stops for a second, looking at the half eaten chocolate chip cookie in Kie's hand, "If I say chocolate chip is better, can I get a piece of it?"

Kie's face lights up at her words, and she's already pulling off a generous chunk of the baked good to hand off to her. The sound of a certain someone whose lap Y/N's legs are outstretched onto from beneath the table scoffing distracts her from the first bite.

"I know you prefer oatmeal raisin, you traitor," JJ says.

Their brunette friend's brows scrunch.

"Why is she a traitor?"

They try to keep from making any faces or giving anything away, but Y/N has to stifle the sound of her choking on her mouthful of cookie at the question. You'd think one of them came out and asked if they were dating or something with how she reacts, and she feels JJ squeeze her ankle in a non-verbal way of telling her to hold it together. It was her idea in the first place, yet he's a lot smoother with keeping it under the radar.

Under it all, the aspect of keeping it a secret does unnerve him to a degree. He doesn't think he'd be brave enough to communicate it, especially not when their relationship remains undefined, but the darker side of his mind wonders...

He shrugs, saying, "Cause we were friends first. Duh. Other than John B, I've known her the longest."

None of them stop to acknowledge the identical aches in their hearts at the mentioning of his name. They skip right over it like it never happened. After the funeral a few days ago, they've filled their quota on mushy-gushy sad talk for the next week and a half.

The real reason is something far more complicated than him having a claim staked on her loyalty through having the longest friendship. It's something tied up in days of slowly getting pulled into one another's worlds like the tug of gravity itself, in how he has to refrain from slipping his arm around her waist in the hallway or kissing her goodbye after a sleepover at the Chateau. But until she gives him the go-ahead, he won't let it slip to anyone.

Pope speaks up from beside him, "You literally met her twenty minutes before we did."

"Still counts. Technically, I did meet her first, so her betraying Team Oatmeal Raisin is enough to be tried for treason in Pogue Court."

"Pogue Court isn't a thing."

He crosses his arms after he pops the rest of the cookie into his mouth.

"It is now. You can be tried for treason for breaking the rules. Rule number one is that all Pogues have to admit oatmeal raisin is superior."

He's about to ball up the cling wrap to throw away later when the surfboard sticker catches his attention again. It's the same color as his board, which he'd like to think is a result of her being an evil mastermind that went out to get this sticker sheet for the sole purpose of teasing him, but he's the one who got her the sheet as a gift for her birthday, so he knows it was pure coincidence.

Last second, he peels the sticker away from the cling wrap and looks down to place it over the top of her yellow converse that were once a vibrant, paler color when Big John got them for her, but have since turned into an ugly mustard/dirt-dusted color they heckle her over.

"What are the other rules?" Y/N asks.

One of the hands holding onto where her feet are casually planted in his lap, something that they've done long enough that their friends won't see it as anything odd, slides down to caress the stretch of skin beneath the frayed hem of her dark jeans. Something she didn't know about him before whatever it is they have together started was that he constantly needs to be touching her. She can't say she doesn't love it though.

Pope answers, "The oatmeal raisin rule is not official"—a pointed glance at JJ—"But I'd assume the rest of the rules of Pogue Court would be no lying and no macking."

"So, basically you two break almost every rule except the oatmeal raisin one, and I lie," JJ says and turns to look at her, "How does it feel to be better than everyone, Y/N?"

"Pretty good, not gonna lie."

He keeps caressing little circles and tracing up and down her skin beneath the flared out pant leg of her jeans while he swipes his phone off of the table top without attracting the attention of their friends, who continue on to a new topic. She isn't too focused on what it is. She only picks up that it has something to do with a class they're in that's more advanced that hers, so she promptly checks out of the conversation.

Ever since John B died, she hasn't been performing too well in school. She tries, truly tries, but her mind outright refuses to absorb any of the information. When she reads her assigned reading, she hovers over the same paragraphs over and over until she shuts the book in a huff and hides it in her backpack again. Losing someone you love has a surprising amount of side effects.

Her phone buzzing in her hand brings her away from the impending cloud of doom that often accompanies any thoughts of John B, and when she taps in her passcode, her brother's birthday, a message bubble appears with a banner displaying JJ's contact name.

JJ (Derogatory) ur a good liar. prob could've fooled me if i weren't the one macking on u

Their eyes meet for a second across the table, then he watches her thumbs move to type a response.

Kief Princess Little do they know I break every rule now that I've switched sides on the cookie debate. Kinda impressive ngl.

JJ (Derogatory) triple threat, baby

JJ (Derogatory) thanks for the cookie btw

She smiles to herself, so wrapped up in their own world that she doesn't notice everyone in the room starting to pack up their stuff in anticipation of the bell that is due to ring any second now.

Kief Princess Had to repay you for last night somehow ;)

When she glances up to see his reaction, she watches his chest rise with a particularly large inhale, and he chews on the inside of his lip in thought.

JJ (Derogatory) strategically bringing up last night so i'm turned on in physics? ur an evil mastermind

Kief Princess I try.

Kief Princess Apparently whooping your sorry ass at surfing isn't the only thing I'm good at.

She hears him scoff.

JJ (Derogatory) first of all, ouch. second, u barely beat me

Kief Princess I'm happy to challenge you to a rematch. I have plans with Kie tonight, so I can't till this weekend. All it'll prove is that I am the rightful winner, but we knew that already.

JJ (Derogatory) what r the stakes this time

Kief Princess No sexual favors. If you beat me (fat chance) I'll formally rejoin team oatmeal raisin.

JJ (Derogatory) :( sex makes it more fun but i still accept those conditions

JJ (Derogatory) team oatmeal raisin needs u, even if ur a traitor

Kief Princess Why bet sexual favors if you're just gonna fuck me after anyway?

JJ (Derogatory) good point

The sound of the bell ringing echoes through the cafeteria, and they both pop their heads up from their phone screens to see everyone, including Pope and Kie, already packed up and raising from their seats to scurry off in the direction of their next classes. Meanwhile, their stuff is all bestrewn across the table, particularly JJ's belongings.

The sight of Kie walking away makes Y/N ask after her, "We're still on for tonight, right?

She stops with Pope's hand interwoven in hers. The look on her face when she turns would make you think she got caught doing something she wasn't meant to. Something like forgetting about the plans they made last week to watch Fear Street together. The Cherry Bowl Drive-In is premiering the first two movies as a double feature for the horror movie buffs of Kildare, so they decided to get tickets. Kiara shares a fondness of horror movies with her. Since gory movies make the boys squirm, though JJ pretends they don't, it's their own thing.

"Actually, Pope and I were gonna go to the beach. I'm sorry."

JJ knows she's more upset about it than she lets on, but Y/N simply gives the pair a smile that doesn't reach the eyes.

The sound of JJ behind her makes them laugh on their way out, diffusing the minor tension lingering in the air from the awkward encounter, "Use protection!"

After their friends offer them a goodbye, they gather their stuff quite leisurely, not really caring about being late.

It's something they've talked about before here or there: her feelings surrounding Kiara and Pope's sudden relationship. It's not as if she harbors any ill feelings for them, she doesn't, but the ripple effects of their pairing on the group, and more importantly the girls' own friendship, couldn't be clearer from her perspective. Between the missed hangouts, forgotten plans, and the convenient way she never seems to have time to hang out with her and JJ unless Pope is there too, it's been building up for a month now.

What makes it sting the most is how close her and Kie used to be. They didn't hit it off immediately the way she and JJ did as children until her thirteenth birthday when no one she invited showed up to the party Big John helped her set up in the yard of the Chateau.

She was the one who rallied the boys together to walk to ask their school friends from the year above to come hang out for an hour or two, promising a slice of the wonky-looking but delicious strawberry cake her and John B spent the morning crafting together. She can remember the sound of their high-pitched laughs and the cloud of flour that hung in the kitchen when they high-fived over the finished product like it was yesterday. In her heart, it was yesterday.

That night was when she fell in love with her friends, and that was when she first knew Kiara was her best friend. They wove friendship bracelets on each other that night and wore them for years until they withered away. No one had ever done something like that for her before. Not even JJ.

"You okay?"

Feeling his hand on her arm, slipping down to take her hand for a moment in the seclusion of the empty cafeteria, makes her glance up at him with a distinct sorrow washed over her features.

You know what? Screw this. Why should she be torn up over Kie and let it ruin her excitement for the double feature tonight? There's no way in hell she's letting her best friend ditching her for her boyfriend get in the way of her plans.

"Do you wanna go on a date tonight?" she asks him abruptly, then adds, "To the Cherry Bowl with me instead of Kie?"

The question sparks a pause in his mind, a halt of hesitation in which he worries about her avoiding having to answer what he asked, but he attempts to play it cool and not fuss over her outwardly. There have been times where being treated like that has made her feel suffocated, so he doesn't want to risk it. When she's ready, she'll talk about it, and if she takes too long and buries her feelings, then he'll intervene. For now, he tries to keep his face neutral despite the frown tempting his lips at her disappointment.

JJ looks around once more before throwing his arm around her shoulder to walk her out.

"You bet your ass I do."

What is a person supposed to act like on their first date that's not actually a date cause everything between them is the same, but kinda is a date because they called it one? If you ever find out, please find JJ and tell him because he has no clue.

Pope wasn't too much help in the Instagram group chat he made for it seeing as his and Kie's relationship is too fresh, John B isn't even alive, so he's out of service for advice unless there's Ouija Board he can borrow, and, thankfully, Kiara was his savior.

Their phones began blowing up as soon as he reached his class after lunch period ended. He couldn't under any circumstances let it be known that this mystery girl he had a date with was their friend, but thankfully Y/N already had the alibi of going to the Drive-In alone. All he had to do was make up a fake date scenario and get basic advice.

danknugstickiestickies added kiara-c and popeheyward to the groupchat

danknugstickiestickies named the group HELP ME

danknugstickiestickies i have a date with this chick i met on the beach when i was out with y/n last week. i need ur advice

His phone screen lit up with the notification that both of his friends were typing, signified with the three dot symbol bouncing in the bottom left corner as he thought it through. They couldn't possibly figure it out, right? They'd been careful, he'd been respectful of her wishes, and they'd been too busy together to notice anything new with them. He figured it would work. It was a risk, sure, but it was worth it to him. He didn't want to fuck this up with her.

Knowing her, she probably wouldn’t even treat it differently than any of their other hang outs. It's not like they haven't been romantic or sexual with each other. They've done everything but go out on an actual date, so why was he nervous?

kiara-c ummmm

popeheyward Yeah, I'm gonna need you to ELABORATE!!

kiara-c did hell freeze over? since when does jj maybank go out on dates??

danknugstickiestickies renamed the group hell froze over

kiara-c very funny, I'm laughing so hard 😐

popeheyward Do we know her?

danknugstickiestickies don't think u do. she moved here last week and hasn't enrolled in school yet. her name's steph

popeheyward What about Y/N though?

kiara-c ^^

JJ's chest muscles tightened with the question prompting a rush of anxiety that made his breathing feel slightly harder. He glanced up at his Physics teacher, who was essentially dozing off behind his desk with his hand in a bag of chips and an educational video on the projector as an excuse to not teach, and looked back down at his phone without the added stress of possibly getting his phone confiscated.

Pope's message might as well have been a sucker punch. Forget butterflies, he set a wasp’s nest loose inside of his stomach to tie it into knots and flip it every which way. His neglected textbook served as a prop for his phone to lean on as he set it down to think.

Did they know? As far as he was aware, they were getting away with it. No evidence, concrete or circumstantial, was there to prove it. At least the stress of the situation killed any chance of him being turned on by her reminder of last night in their messages. This shit was boner repellant of the highest degree.

He played stupid. Better to let them volunteer whatever information they had before he went in saying anything incriminating that they didn't already know. If anything would sour the experience of their first date, it would be him accidentally making their strange in-between relationship public behind her back.

danknugstickiestickies ?? what do u mean

Three dots bounced in the bottom left corner of his slightly cracked phone screen.

popeheyward ...

kiara-c I mean, you don't see it?

danknugstickiestickies see what

popeheyward I guess we were wrong, but all of us always thought you two had some feelings going on.

"You don't say?" JJ murmured sarcastically to himself under his breath. "Never crossed my mind, Pope."

danknugstickiestickies bro that's jb's little sister

kiara-c so?

danknugstickiestickies forbidden fruit? making john b roll over in his grave? do those ring a bell or am i speaking in tongues

He was already a proficient liar in real life, but, fuck, it was easy in text messages. There's no chance at deciphering facial expression or tone, just a plain message with no room to budge. Thank God he didn't do this in person with them. He could've survived, but it wouldn't have been as quick and painless as the group chat was.

kiara-c jeez, sorry

Pope didn't voice it, but he noticed something.

He looked up from his phone and stared off at the wall in thought in his AP European History class. It piqued his interest that JJ simply said she was off limits, forbidden fruit as he put it, but did not outright deny having feelings for her. In fact, he didn't even address the question. He made excuses for why he shouldn't have feelings for her, but he never said he didn't have feelings for her.

Kie did not notice. Not because she wasn't smart enough to either, but because she was too busy hiding her phone behind her backpack to think too deeply about it. Her teacher was one of those teachers that would flip shit if they saw a cell phone turned off and faced down on the desk, let alone being used by a student during a lesson.

In his classroom across the hallway, JJ bounced his leg up and down beneath his desk in an absentminded urge to release the built up energy the anxiety produced in an over abundance.

popeheyward Our bad then. Even John B thought y'all were sus lmao.

Since when was that a known fact? Could he tell? Did he talk to Pope about him and Y/N before he died? Either way, it wasn't the time to pry about it.

kiara-c yeah you guys honestly could've fooled me if you wanted to

danknugstickiestickies well thank u, glad ur invested in our friendship but

danknugstickiestickies please help, i have no fucking clue how to act on a date and this girl is too cool for me to screw this up

That was when they finally dropped the interrogation session and started offering up tips. The best ones came from Kie, which made sense to him since women are more likely to know what other women like than two dudes who share one collective brain cell and never had real relationships.

Rule One: Be ready to pick her up five minutes early.

He wasn't ready to pick her up five minutes early. His bike broke down by the time he made it halfway down his street, so he had to push it back up the road and into the yard before setting off on foot to reach the Chateau quickly enough. And by quickly enough, it means he got there five minutes late, not early.

Rule Two: Compliment her after you get in the car.

She tossed him the keys to the Twinkie from across the hood, not giving him the chance to open the door for her, and it wasn't until they were setting off down the road that he remembered the next piece of advice he was given.

Side-eyeing her in his peripheral vision, he tried to find something to compliment her on specifically rather than the general compliments about her being pretty that she never fully believes when he says them. He was intending to say something about the skirt she had on, but when he chanced a glance over at her, she caught him and asked—

"What is it?"

Sent into panic mode, JJ blurted out instead, "I like your shoes."

He could've bashed his face against the steering wheel twenty times right then and there at the utter absence of reaction on her part for the next few uncomfortable seconds. It wasn't that it was a bad compliment. She appreciates any compliments at all...but her shoes were hidden from his view. Not to mention, they were the dirty, mustard yellow converse that the Pogues bash on a daily basis.

She laughed, lifting her leg to expose the sneaker on her right foot, and asked, "These? Dude, you roast me for these all the time. You and John B said they look like Big Bird shit on them."

The skin on the apples of his cheeks scorched hot with embarrassment, and he was never so glad that the overhead lights in the van were burnt out until that moment. He would've died on the spot if she saw him blush like that, face flushed pinker than sunburn. All he could do to save himself was murmur something about the color growing on him and keep driving in the direction of the theater with his hands white-knuckling the steering wheel he fantasized about banging his face into.

Rule Three: Insist on picking up the check.

In this case, it meant insist on buying the popcorn and drinks, and he miraculously managed to drop his wallet somewhere along the way when he ran over to the Chateau, so when he stepped up to the makeshift concession stand with her standing at his side, he felt around for his wallet in his jeans to no avail.

His thoughts echoed back to him, You gotta be fucking kidding me. Seriously? Is this actually happening right now?

"JJ, it's honestly fine," she said softly as he leaned over to search back of the Twinkie for the wallet. "We can look for it on your street right now if you want. It has your ID and stuff, you don't want a stranger to have that. We don't need to stay—"

It took all of his control to not shout it in reaction when he said, "No way. You've been waiting for this, and Kie ditched you, so I ain't ditching you too. We're staying."

His wallet could go kick rocks.

He came too far to be dragged down by the old leathery piece of shit anyway. Would he go out and search for it tirelessly the second the date ended? Hell yeah, that fucker had twenty dollars and his debit card in it, but he couldn't bear the thought of abandoning her or ruining her anticipated movie night by taking her out to search the streets with their phone flashlights for a wallet they might not find. He'd wait till the movies ended, take her home, then haul ass around the Cut searching for it after.

Thankfully, he found a couple bucks crumbled up in his front pocket while she scavenged for coins in the glove compartment, and they came up with enough to buy a water bottle and small popcorn to share together.

Rule Four: Don't have sex on the first date.

And it may sound easy enough to not act like a complete Neanderthal for the length of two movies, but the girl makes it pretty damn difficult if he's to say so himself.

That's what led him here, laying in the back of the sideways-parked Twinkie in the farthest corner of the outdoor theater with her practically on top of him. In any other instance, he wouldn't be opposed in the slightest, but with the cursed fourth rule in mind, he isn't too thrilled with the feeling of her hand rubbing up and down his thigh.

It isn't even meant to be sexual. They're constantly touching one another this way. She'll even slip her hands up under his shirt just to feel the warmth of his skin or when he asks her if she can get an itch on a part of his back he can't reach, but for some reason his brain is short circuiting right now.

The thing is, when Kie and Pope said he shouldn't do it on the first date, they meant it for his and Steph's made up circumstances, not his and Y/N's full-blown relationship without labels. When you've had sex with someone as many times as they have with each other, the hesitancy on the "first date" is nonexistent. It doesn't matter. But JJ, trying to follow the advice given to him to the letter for the sake of being the date she deserves, doesn't think about it that way.

It shouldn't be this nerve-wracking. They've been best friends since they were children, they've been flirting since they found out what basic attraction was in the first place, and they've been forming this relationship ever since John B died. Why can't he relax? Why is this so different compared to how easy it felt between them yesterday on the beach or today at lunch?

Rule Five: Be yourself.

It takes him another few moments of laying here with her before he realizes quite abruptly what went wrong in a quick flash of a thought that brings the fifth rule back to him. The problem wasn't the bike, or the weird compliment about her Big Bird sneakers, or the lost wallet.

The problem is him. The problem is that he's trying way too hard to make this something it isn't. The part about them that he adores so dearly is how they never have to try when they're together. With any other girl or guy, they'd have to fake something or act a certain way, yet when they're together, they can simply exist and everything is runs smoothly. That's not to say they don't disagree or bump heads, they do, but short of those outlier moments, it's easier than anything else they do in life.

His eyes flicker away from the screen for the first time since the movie began, which, by the way, is gruesome enough at times that he had to divert his eyes to prevent himself from seeing it happen. They land on where she lays, completely content with the night in spite of its mishaps, with her head propped up on the pillows they brought from the Chateau.

He wonders if she can tell he's acting differently. Surely she must notice. She's the type of person that typically never misses a thing, perfect for the gold hunt they went on in the summer with picking up the clues and helping her brother unravel the mystery, so maybe she noticed how flustered this date has him. Does it bother her? Does he bother her?

With a confirming glance back up at the movie to see nothing important happening, he can't fight the urge to speak anymore.

"Can I tell you something?"

His voice appearing through the darkness of the shut off van after spending the past half hour in complete silence makes her jolt at first before realizing who it was. Though she loves horror movies, she can't claim to not be affected by them. The night she falls asleep after watching one, she often finds herself compelled to turn a light on and keep her feet from dangling off the edge of the bed. It's worth the fear, though.

When she turns to look at JJ, there's a warm smile on her face. She's cuddled into his side with a hand placed casually atop his thigh, caressing with no purpose or intent, and her movement halts when the light from the movie on the projector allows her to see the expression on his face.

Anxiety has become an increasingly significant presence in his life with the recent events in mind; John B and Sarah, the four-hundred million dollars they lost out on, and dodging his father whenever he sneaks home to switch out the backpack of clothes and personal belongings he keeps at the Routledge house.

It manifests itself in jittery nerves, stomach pains, shortness of breath, and, at worst, panic attacks striking either at random or in response to a specific trigger. It's one of the few things he still tries to hide from her, and she tries not to push him too hard with opening up about it.

She abandons the movie for the time being and rolls onto her side to face him, upper body propped up on her elbow as she examines his face with downturned features.

"Of course," she says.

The words left unsaid are, "You can tell me anything. Whenever you need someone to listen, or to talk to about shit, you can tell me." He's heard her say it enough that he doesn't need to hear it now to know it's true.

There's a pause, then—

"I feel like I fucked this entire date up," he starts to ramble and cuts her off before she can think about saying what she wants to, "and I know it's okay to you. You have way too high of a tolerance for my bullshit, and I've been trying so hard to make this perfect, but all that did was screw it up."

She's left quiet for a second, taking it all in.

Maybe if he hadn't been so anxious about it, he would've realized what was wrong with his bike when he rode it home from school, or he would've noticed his wallet fall out of his pocket. The point is, he wishes he hadn't let the label attached to this freak him out so much. He isn't sure why it does, but it does.

But she doesn't do what he expects. She isn't drowning him in reassurances and, "It's okay's" because she knows he doesn't care for them much. When he, the most stubborn person she knows, apologizes for something he did, he doesn't want it to turn into the person accepting the apology coddling him.

Y/N sighs.

"Is that why you've been acting so different all night? I scared you with the whole ‘date’ thing, didn't I? It doesn't have to be a date if you don't want it to be."

What she doesn't know is that he wants it to be a date. He wants it to be a date so badly, he risked Pope and Kie finding them out for the sake of getting some proper advice on it, and now he's caught up in the same game of tug and war in his mind that always occurs when he wants to tell her the truth about his feelings for her.

Part of him doesn't understand why he doesn't outright say it. With every other girl he once showed interest in, he had no issues in letting them know he wanted them, but this is different. This isn't simply wanting someone, he thinks he's fallen for her. But whenever he says he's gonna grow a pair and tell her after all this time, he chokes. Involuntarily, he's reminded of his parents. Other than his friends saying it platonically, the only people to tell him they loved him were them, and with how they treated him, he sure as hell doesn't think that is love.

From his dad's brutal physical abuse to his mom's abandonment, he's too timid to tell her he loves her because of what could happen if she loves him back. Everyone else that has said that to him has either hurt him, died like John B did, or abandoned him.

He won't let that happen with him and Y/N. What they have, albeit undefined and codependent, is safe. It's the only thing he has left. Maybe it isn't right, and maybe he should open up about it to communicate the correct way, but somewhere in the misshapen logic of his mind, he correlates love to abandonment. And he doesn't want that to happen with her.

There are two sides of him at battle inside his mind. One side, the side that wants to do right by their relationship and actually communicate his feelings for once in his life, wants him to tell her everything. The other side, the side that responds based on the history of his past, wants him to hide it all.

"Will you be mad at me if we don't call it a date?" he asks.

She shakes her head.

The heavy sensation inside of JJ's chest nears a point of vitriolic violence against him as he starts to realize what he's doing to her, clearly letting her down, but he can't stop himself. Like a passive witness watching himself from outside of his body, the instantaneous trauma response to the sudden confrontation of his true feelings for her guides his actions without his permission. It shuts down any protest he has.

The sound of the movie fills the gap of silence between them the entire time. It’s a variety of bloodcurdling screams and disgusting sounds that would've made him gag if he weren't as distracted.

They can make out each other's faces through the darkness, but barely. It takes a flash of bright color from the film or a nearby car's lights turning on for them to fully see one another. Without the other knowing, they both put masks of calm and collected coolness on their faces despite the feelings raging beneath the surface—more so on his part than hers.

"Maybe," he says, pausing, "we should just keep things the way they've been."

As soon as the words leave his mouth, a soul-crushing amount of disappointment weighs her down. She said it was fine if he doesn't want it to be a date—and it is, she would never hold it against him—but that doesn't mean it can't hurt her. Things have been going so well, she almost thought...If tonight went well, she was thinking about no longer keeping it a secret, but if he said he wants things to stay the same, then maybe he isn't as ready for it as she is?

Meanwhile, JJ is on another page entirely.

She's embarrassed of being with you, a familiar voice in the back of his head croons. She's gonna leave just like everyone else does. If she doesn't even wanna tell your friends, why should you pretend you're dating?

The internal comments are the type that cause him to physically grimace when he's alone. Intrusive thoughts are just that: intrusive.

Sneaking into the guarded sanctuary of a person's mind, they set out to convince them the opposite of their reality. The only thing is, where most people's minds are guarded sanctuaries with walls of impregnable defense, his mind is the equivalent of a fortress blown to smithereens. The castle walls lay in rubble, the guards no where to be seen, and the path for these thoughts to slip past and straight to the vulnerability of his mind is left wide open.

In the privacy of his room, these thoughts attack him the most at night when he tries to fall asleep—when things get too quiet. With nobody around, when they get this bad there's nothing he can do except break down. It builds from the mere anxiety of attempting to force the thoughts away to full-blown panic attack mode. The more he resists them, the more aggressive they become. He'll gasp for air with tears streaming down his face, hitting his head with the heel of his hand as if that'd do something to stop his relentless mind.

But he can't afford to react in front of her, so the extent of his reaction is a subtle twitch of his face that she cannot see in the momentary darkness before the movie switches to another scene a second later. In a way, it does make the thoughts go away to have her here preventing him from spiraling alone. Having to focus on her keeps his mind away for moments at a time until the thoughts ease their grip on him.

When she hasn't answered for a while, he asks, terrified that he did something bad, "Are we good?"

The question seems to wake her up, snapping her out of the lonely direction her thoughts went into when he "rejected" her. It takes every bit of common sense she has left to force herself to understand that this doesn't mean he doesn't want her. He does, and not calling this a date doesn't mean they won't be together in the way they have been since John B's death, but she isn't perfect. She gets as unsure and insecure as he does.

As if the cloud of doom was lifted off of her, she makes her face lighten where she lays on her side next to him. Seeing this expression makes his chest feel less heavy, and he could let out a sigh of relief at the realization that he didn't break her heart and stomp on it. He should've known. Y/N is the sweetest person he knows, so she never would've flipped shit over him not wanting to label this as a date. That's not how she is.

And he's partly right. It isn't how she is. She would never hold it against him if he didn't want something further with her since she got herself into this position by pursuing him with his reputation with girls in mind, but she can't ignore it. Whether she wants it to or not, it had its affect on her as soon as he said it.

She leans in to kiss him, their lips meeting in the middle with the faint taste of popcorn salt mingling at the soft peck.

When she pulls away, she brushes the hair back from his face and says, "Don't worry. Nothing can change how I feel about you."

She has no clue what it feels like to hear that from her.

Despite the turmoil they unknowingly share beneath the surface due to this conversation, he could cry hearing her say it. It doesn't feel real to him that she feels the same way he does about her, because nothing could change how he feels about her either. That’s why he manages to work up the courage to repeat it back to her, and, for now, this is the closest he's physically capable of coming to telling her the truth.

"Ditto," he says.

It isn't what she wanted, but it's close enough, and if she dwells on this any longer, she might start getting too emotional and let the urge to tear up become too strong. Why does she have to be this sensitive? It's no secret that it's remarkably easy to make her cry, but this is insane to her. When all of this began with him, she didn't give a shit about him not wanting a label. She understood him, and she understood that he doesn't do this kind of thing, so why has it changed? Why doesn't she want to keep it a secret anymore? Why does she want this to be a date when she knows he doesn't want it to be?

Pulled by an invisible string back to him to silence her mind, she leans in to kiss him again with a hand cupping the back of his neck to guide him the rest of the way to her.

It shouldn't be laced with any sexual intention. She should be kissing him simply because she wants to, and, in a way, she is. Their kisses and touches are never lacking the motivation that is their underlying connection and mutual feelings for one another, but this is not the same. As he kisses her back with as much confidence and passion as always, she is reeling from the conversation that reminded her too much of a breakup.

It takes another minute of this for the kiss to heat up, their breathing becoming shallower in the moments they part to inhale, and she is undeniably the one instigating when she officially crosses the line between casual and sexual by crawling onto his lap. It's not hard for him to pick up on when their innocent moments take a turn. She's easy to read in that regard, and this has happened a multitude of times with them, so the shift of a mini make out session turning into something more is nothing out of the ordinary for them.

If he knew how shaken she is on the inside, he'd never want this. And the same would go for her if she knew what he was thinking before this. Neither of them wants to admit what they're feeling.

With her legs seated on either side of his hips, she kisses him like it's the last time she'll ever get the opportunity to. Her hands wander wherever they can, pulling at his shirt and feeling him up as his hands guide her hips to move against his in a steady grinding that she has no issue partaking in. It's an eagerness he hasn't seen from her in weeks. She's never un-excited when it comes to being physical with him either, but this is another level. The last time a girl was all over him like this, it was desperate touron at a party a few months ago.

In the span of time it takes her to glance over her shoulder to see if anyone could see them and reach to pull her skirt up until it bunches around her hips—no one can see them, by the way, since they got here late and were forced to cram the van into the back corner of the lot with no street lights illuminating the path—his brows raise at her presumptuous behavior. Not that he's one to complain, however, seeing as he's typically the one doing what she is.

Their next kiss clashes their teeth hard enough to make them wince, but he loves it. It makes him smirk into her parted mouth, alive with both the feeling her reassurance provided and the fuzzy-headed high that often finds him when they're together in this way. Incomparable to past flings or the high related to any drugs, she is the peak of everything to him. It's no contest.

His chest stutters against hers with a bout of amused laughter, asking within a brief pause in what feels like the most JJ thing he's said this awkward night, "Two for two in the Twinkie. What's gotten into you?"

Y/N's hand dips between where their bodies move together to unclasp the closed buckle of his belt in one smooth motion that has it falling apart with a clinking noise.

Her features are set with a look that tells him she means business. Whatever it is that sparked this, he wonders how the fuck to make it happen again another time. She's begged for it before, but never taken control so dominantly, and he can't deny what the role reversal does to him. The evidence is obvious in the distinct hardness she feels pressing up against the hand undoing his jeans.

"I was hoping it'd be you," she says, voice breathless and airy from the constant contact in a way that makes it ten times hotter for him.

If there were any chance of him not being in the mood prior to this, which wasn't the case anyway, it's gone now. He never wants to hear her say she doesn't deliberately try to tease him ever again.

He doesn't need to be told twice.

JJ surges forward to capture her mouth with his, this time with no intention of pulling away to breathe or speak again. No, he'll let himself get lightheaded and dizzy if it means he can stay with her for as long as possible.

With the circumstances of it all, them being visible to someone if they happened to pass by the open door of the van, they move at a pace quicker than usual. She's immediately helping him shimmy his jeans and underwear far enough down his hips to free his dick from the confines of his clothes, making him sigh out a breath of relief when her hand brushes against him in the process.

There's no opportunity to slow down, it has exploded into a full-throttle speed race that neither of them can halt.

His hand blindly flies out beside him to grope the floor of the van for the set of keys he tossed carelessly to the side once the movie started, eyes shut in the midst of the hot, messy kiss they share. His fingers find the fabric of one of the blankets they brought in case they got cold, then drifts again and lands on her Big Bird sneakers until he feels the sharp metal of her keys meet his calloused palm.

After the events of last summer, she bought a switch blade to keep on her key ring alongside the keys to the van, HMS Pogue, and Chateau. She may not like violence or weapons, seeing as she was a skeptic of JJ keeping the gun alongside her friends, but she saw it necessary. Between Rafe, Topper, and Kelce, how could she leave the safety of her and her friends up to chance knowing what some of the kooks did to them not long ago? What happened to Pope on the golf course alone was enough to make her skin crawl.

Right now, though, the knife flips out from the pressure of his thumb pushing the button to release it. He holds it out away from her at first to assure it doesn't nick her in the process, then uses his other hand to tug the side of her panties that hugs her hip far out enough to press the sharp side of the blade onto the inside of it.

She can hardly believe what she's watching as JJ cuts the delicate maroon underthings from her body as if he were doing something so normal, like it's something he's done before. Her forehead is pressed against his, her mouth parted both in shock and in a need to pant for oxygen, and she watches the knife ruin her favorite panties. The stitches come apart with a satisfying ripping noise that can hardly be heard over the sound of people reacting to the movie in the background.

Other customers of the Cherry Bowl Drive-In are too glued to the screen as a beloved character is chased down, reacting in shouts when she's seized by the killer and shoved onto the table of an industrial bread slicer, so they remain wholly unnoticed.

The lace, now ripped in half, dangles on the tip of the knife when he lifts it away from her, tosses it aside, and presses the button once more to retract the blade. It clatters to the floor, but is in no way forgotten with them resuming in a desperation to keep going until they both satisfy the need clawing at them from the inside. But her sense of need is different from his, and even with the fresh memory of him with the switch blade in mind, she's still somewhere else the whole time.

Her mind is faraway, muted through layers of sadness, anger, and disappointment as he reaches between them to line himself up to her entrance. The sensation of him running his cock, hard and messy with a few drops of precome, through her dripping pussy to coat it in her slick arousal is enough to make her moan pathetically. Yet when he's about to guide himself inside of her, she stops him.

"Wait, wait, wait," she breathes out rapidly, heart pounding so hard she can feel herself pulsating between her thighs, "Condom."

They were so antsy to get to it, they almost forgot.

"Fuck," he curses under his breath, and his eyes flicker from where they were trained between their bodies to glance back and forth around the van before it hits him. "I lost my wallet..."

But right when he thinks their public rendezvous in the back of the Drive-In is over due to his unfortunate mistake, she shakes her head and slips away from her perch astride his lap to crawl over to her bag.

She fumbles with the old tote bag and plunges her arm in to sift through the hodge podge of things that are purely Y/N in nature—stickers, glitter pens, a half-eaten bag of candy, etc—for the square foil package she decided to toss in before she left just in case. She usually doesn't keep them on her because he never fails to have one, but, thankfully, she had the random instinct to bring it tonight.

The only thing to bring her out of her cloudy, malevolent storm of feelings when she settles back onto his lap with the condom wrapper ripped open for him is him saying, "So you planned this, huh?" with his mouth tipped in a familiar self-satisfied grin.

She didn't plan it. In fact, she threw herself at him the second she sensed him withdrawing from her and can't stop herself despite the fact that she constantly feels two seconds away from letting a tear slip down her cheek. If that counts as "planning it", then sure.

"Maybe so," she answers, cool, calm, and collected—the antithesis of the truth.

They usually don't lie to each other.

They're thrown right back into it without any other hiccups once he rolls the condom on, and he takes in a shaky breath at her hand wrapping around him to align their bodies up. Before she can do anything, though, he takes chance to swipe the blanket he found a moment ago and wrap it around her back to keep her covered in case they get caught.

Y/N sinks down onto his cock with her lip caught between her teeth to stifle the sound that threatens to escape. JJ, on the other hand, doesn't bother concealing the sound of the groan he makes at the sensation of having her wrapped around him like this. The tension in her entire body from the anticipation and the looming threat of being seen by someone has her squeezing him so tightly, he can't help but be a little louder than he should.

Her soft palm slaps over his mouth with enough pressure to force his groan to quiet itself, and she watches his pretty blue eyes widen in reaction to the dominant action. Who is this girl and what has she done with his sweet, submissive Y/N? Don't get him wrong, he is very turned on by it, but it's unlike her to take the lead this way. He can't figure it out.

"What's wrong, angel?" she asks in a whisper into his ear, her hand over his mouth and her hips starting to slowly rock against him, "Watch the movie."

Once the words leave her mouth, she drops her hand, just in case he wants to stop and can't say anything because she had his mouth covered, and JJ is pretty sure he's died and gone to heaven.

He doesn't watch the movie, not at all, because he's too busy watching her. For someone losing their mind internally, she does not let it show, nor does she let it distract her from what's happening. If anything, the distraction in this situation is the sex, not what's going on inside of her head.

There's a moment of adjustment and going as slowly and gently as possible while waiting for the dull pressure of feeling him inside of her to fade away, but, for the most part, she doesn't waste any time. As soon as she feels comfortable enough with the ache between her thighs giving way to a spark of pleasure when she grinds her clit down on his pubic bone, she starts to ride him at a better pace than the initial slow movements of her hips.

She raises herself up and takes him again inch by inch, enjoying the sense of fullness she gets from having to fit him in spite of the slight discomfort at first, and she could swear that he'll leave bruises in the shape of his handprints with how tightly he clutches her hips. It's all he can do to prevent himself from moaning or saying something, ever the vocal lover she's come to know.

Unless his mouth is preoccupied like it was on the beach yesterday afternoon, JJ is usually impossible to shut up, especially in this context. With him always whispering dirty things to her, whether it be praises, pet names, or plans on what he wants to do to her, she has come to find it breathtakingly hot. He could likely get away with saying something if he wanted to, but he isn't sure he wants to risk it. If he opens his mouth to spew something filthy to her, he won't trust himself not to make a louder, different kind of noise that won't fit in the with background audio the other moviegoers are listening to.

The wet sound of their bodies colliding that fills the space of the van is drowned out by the loud and violent sequence occurring on the screen far ahead of them, and hearing it makes her bounce herself on him a little harder. She's fueled on by it all, and, strangely, what happened before she practically pounced on him is the main contributor.

Similarly to the nature of his intrusive thoughts, the harder she resists the memory of how it felt when he told her he didn't want this to be a date, the more forceful it is in its return. Her eyes trail down to watch where they connect with her forehead pressed to his, then she's thrown back into the feeling of helpless disappointment and insecurity. His head tips back against the window with his bottom lip dropped open and his brows furrowed just enough to create a crease on his forehead, and she's bombarded with the look of relief on his face when he realized he didn't have to be tied down to her with a label.

It makes her want to get rougher, harder, and she doesn't even care if it'll make her sore later on. She presses herself down so far every time she slides down on his cock, her teeth draw blood on her lip with how hard she must bite it to remain quiet. The pain of her hipbones rubbing against his doesn't even matter to either of them at this point. They're both too lost in the pleasure that has begun to take control of them to care about something as minuscule as that, or the burn in her thighs from the repetitive physical strain.

She grabs his wrist and brings his hand between them, flattening hers overtop of it and pressing down on the base of her abdomen in the midst of the increasingly feverish thrusts.

"Feel you here," she murmurs to him through a quiet moan, hoping he can hear it over the movie, and pushes down on his hand for emphasis. And if the way he reacts by cursing under his breath tells her anything, it's that he picked up on it. "JJ..."

He reaches out to grab her by the throat with his free hand and tug her forward to kiss him, as if something inside of him snapped in response to her doing that. The motions of her jolting up and down throws the already messy and uncoordinated kiss off-kilter, but they don't mind. It has them separating every time she lifts up, producing this heady little head rush from from them breathing in each other's air without actually letting their mouths meet in the middle.

Though they're trying their hardest not to alert anyone outside of what's happening, it didn't occur to him until now, when his eyes catch John B's old bandana swinging back and forth where it's secured around the rear view mirror.

They're worried about moaning while the entire fucking Twinkie is rocking with their movements. Well, at least it makes good use of the corny sticker he gifted John B last year as a gag gift. He tried to peel it off after JJ snuck it onto the side window to no avail. So, now Y/N is stuck with a sticker on her car reading, "If the van's a-rockin', come on in, we like orgies," rather than the more common phrase.

It almost makes him start laughing, and he prays no one takes that shit seriously, 'cause he is never intent on sharing this breathtaking girl. Ever.

Y/N isn't anywhere near laughing like he is, in fact, she's finding it difficult to keep herself together. She feels her eyes sting with the promise of tears, and she's never felt so pathetic before. Is she seriously about to cry during sex? Is she really that girl that is so ill-equipped to handle rejection, she can't get through it without tears?

She won't cry. Perhaps if he sees how glossy her eyes have become in a rare moment of good lighting, she can blame it on the hand around her throat putting pressure on the sides of her neck.

The worst part about her being near to crying is the timing of it.

The emotion of what she feels mentally mixes with the swirling, building sensation she feels in the pit of her stomach that tells her she's close to going over the edge, and it's so overwhelming. Was she imagining that their friendship had changed? More importantly, is this all she'll ever be to him? Sex is the only thing she's sure of with him, it's the only thing that doesn't require deeper emotions, and when the ground beneath their fragile relationship felt shaky...

He can feel her starting to unravel, and he knows that he'll come before she does if he doesn't do anything now, so he decides to take control.

JJ pulls the hand he had resting on her abdomen away as though he were burned by it, wrapping his arm around her waist to steady her body against his and using the hand around her neck for leverage to thrust up into her, effectively reducing her to a teary-eyed, moaning mess atop him. They both stopped caring about making noise the second he began to fuck her like this.

She cries out in ecstasy at the sudden change in pace and depth that has him hitting all the right places. Every time he thrusts up into her, just as rough as she wished for, the tip of his cock nudges into that perfect spot inside of her that makes her incapable of silencing her moans. This time, it's JJ that puts his hand over her mouth, letting the one he had around her neck move away to keep her from alerting everyone around them of what's happening.

There's nothing she can do to stop her climax as it barrels through her in its initial sweeping wave of bliss to contrast the venomous doubts in her mind. She's never felt such conflicting, yet powerful feelings before—the intensity of the physical pleasure that makes her whine into the palm of his hand, then the part of her mind replaying every word he said in their conversation before this.

Her body is rigid and tense through it all, squeezing down around his cock with the involuntary spasms of her orgasm, and he can't help himself anymore. All it takes are a few more frantic thrusts for him to bury himself inside of her one last time and spill into the condom, uncovering her mouth so he can drown out his own groans into a kiss.

Their skin sticks to their clothes on the inside with sweat from the exertion of their actions, and he can feel her stomach tremble where it presses up against his with each undulation of her hips that meet his as he rides it out.

But even with the added distraction of the sex, she can't rid herself of the feeling that started plaguing her as soon as things went awry. That was why he was acting weird all night. He must have been so worried about her thinking this was anything more than their typical hangouts that he couldn't bring himself to act normally.

She forces herself to look happy when they pull away from the kiss, panting, and JJ, unaware of what she's been thinking, doesn't notice the small deception.

Tag list: @gabiatthedisco

[watevermelon]

✧ Jealous!Atsumu x Reader; Finally returning home after traveling with the MSBY Black Jackals, Atsumu stakes his claim over you. (nsfw)

➳ A/N: TYSM!! Message received ;) ➳ Contains: jealous smut; possessive / dominant sex; semi-public; some light choking; Osamu calls during sex and Atsumu makes you answer ✧   Masterlist

-----xXxXxXxXxXx-----

“Atsumu, please.” You moaned out, “ We should go home first...”

“Don’t ya worry yer pretty little head.”

Eyes forcibly shuttered closed, you were basically begging Atsumu to stop.

The setter just continued to ignore you, his fingers settled inside you as you uttered contradictory pleas. You wanted more pressure, but you also wanted to do this at home. Your begging rotated between asking for more and attempting to persuade him to finally go to your shared apartment.

But there was one thing for sure, no matter how much the logical side of your brain screamed at you, your body was yearning for Atsumu right at this moment.

There was no doubt that your longtime lover was a near-expert when it came to your body. Any of your qualms would be easily pushed aside as you silently gave into his scandalous touches. And despite the latent fear of being caught by bystanders outside of the steamy vehicle, it was getting harder and harder to care.

The two of you had just left dinner with the rest of the old Inarizaki team. Having reunited after all these years, many of the others were catching-up over the lost time. A couple of them you had seen intermittently throughout the blank period - Suna and Aran stayed on the professional scene and you saw Osamu basically every other day.

As a professional athlete, Atsumu was always busy. Playing volleyball full-time was his dream and while he was proud to stand on the national stage, there were some drawbacks that the both of you had long conceded to. Often, he would be out traveling somewhere with the team, whether to stadiums in the far reaches of the country or dealing with PR that came with being a renowned celebrity.

You texted and called during your times apart, but there was nothing that could replace actually being there with someone. The physical affection that you missed from your lover could never be replaced with your own touches. 

But as long as Atsumu returned back to you, that was enough to fill your heart whole.

And so you often hung around your own friends and even Osamu. He often teased you were his future sister-in-law, despite nothing being set in stone and not a single rock on your finger. You would reason that Atsumu was a handsome athlete on the world stage meeting plenty of people, but even Osamu had adamantly stated that you alone were his fated future sister.

If only the asshole was as thoughtful around his brother as he was around you.

Osamu was probably trying to push Atsumu’s buttons on purpose, but now you were the unwilling collateral damage.

It started simply, about the new dress you bought in anticipation of Atsumu returning home. You ate lunch with the onigiri twin and were walking together when you passed a boutique with a simple, red dress that flirted high above your knees in the display. You thought about getting it and, with nothing to do for the rest of the day, Osamu hung out with you as you tried it on.

It was all coincidental and you thought nothing of it as Osamu brought it up at the dinner table as you were wearing it now. But when the twin complimented your sense of style, the team seemed to egg you on.

“Ya look so nice today, (L/N)!” Ginjima added.

“Out of all of us, (L/N) has always had the most style.” Suna snidely commented as he gestured to the twins with his chin.

“(L/N)-chan has always been beautiful.” Kosaku complimented, earning a small nod in agreement from Kita.

You glanced at Atsumu in the corner of your eye. And while the smile on his face spelled peace, you knew from his hardened eyes that he was not happy.

It was one thing to accept the compliments of the others, but you were admittedly openly basking in their undivided attention. If he were in a more steady head-space, Atsumu would have frowned or pouted or even took action to put the others in the place. But you hadn’t really seen each other in weeks and he was looking forward to spending individual time with you.

Of course, nothing went his way and instead of the hot night he was looking forward to, instead you ushered him out of your shared apartment to this reunion dinner. 

Osamu sat on your other side while Atsumu had to sit there and listen to the two of you chat like you were the ones dating. It was a stupid thought filled with only jealousy, but it only fostered the small pit in his stomach that seemed to grow in recent times.

Atsumu knew that the love you shared between each other was true, but it silently broke his heart every time he had to say goodbye to you knowing that the next time he would see you would be in days or maybe even weeks. You had complained a few times, but you did everything the two of you could to keep your bond. Video chats and texts were one thing, but seeing you constantly on his brother’s social media was another.

Lunches, hang-outs - what else was Atsumu missing?

And seeing the two of you openly talk about it now? Right to his face?

Atsumu wanted to claim where you sat.

And that predatory stare, that possessive claim Atsumu held over you all night as he draped an arm across the back of your chair, came to fruition the moment you two were alone. 

You waved goodbye to the rest, Osamu even shooting you a smirk at what he knew his twin was eager to do. A part of you was worried about your body for the next few hours, but when Atsumu tightly squeezed the side of your hip, you knew it would be worth it.

And so he near dragged you two where you parked earlier, you were unceremoniously tossed in the back of the car, Atsumu locking the door behind him as he clamored in. His lips were on you instantly and if not for the tinted windows, you would have pushed him off.

He ravaged you with the intensity of a man starved, sucking at your neck and making his way down your body. There was no hesitation on his end, his hands eagerly pushing your shirt and bra over your breasts. The moment you felt the chill on your skin, he latched onto an already beaded nipple.

“I’ll make sure ya only remember my name by the end of tonight.” He whispered against your skin possessively.

Atsumu maneuvered you around the back seats, pushing away clothing as your skirt bunched up around your hips. Your underwear was thrown away, somewhere on the floor of the car. There were surely red splotches in his wake, kissing at your chest before making his way further down. He dipped a playful tongue in your belly button as he went, surprising you into sitting upright. 

He lifted you by the hips, athletic strength more than enough to handle you. You had no firm grasp on the cushions, hand moving to one of the head-rests but having no way to move without having to ask the setter to do so. Atsumu held you completely in his grasp, back arched as his lips trailed down to your awaiting cunt.

“Who do you belong to?”

Atsumu watched as you squirmed uncomfortably. It was obvious you wanted more pressure, more anything, but he was conducting you to the beat of his drum today. He sucked at your clit and watched you cry-out his name in response, near begging him for more. 

There was no denying it at this point, evidence of your want all over his face. Atsumu shoved two fingers, to the knuckles, inside you. You threw your head back at the movement, but the setter made no effort to actually move inside you. He pumped once, twice, before pulling out of you entirely.

“Please.”

Atsumu playfully scoffed and you felt the vibration against your skin. You pushed your hips up in response, which only made him back off more. 

The teasing asshole.

“I asked ya a question.”

“It’s only ever been you!” You replied, almost sobbing as you looked down at Atsumu, that infamous smirk still on his face from earlier.

“Oh? Why don’t ya prove it?” Atsumu stated, placing you back down on the seat. That second of peace was followed by the setter gripping your neck and pulling you to him, not enough to make you panic, but more than enough to make you aware of the possessive hold.

Atsumu was up on his knees while you were eye level with what he was surely going to have you full with in a second.

“Do I have to do everythin’ myself?” He asked, a hint of impatience in his teasing words.

His hands were still around your throat as you reached for his belt, unclasping and then bringing down his pants. It stayed bunched around his knees and all that was left in front of you were his boxers.

“Feelin’ meek or somethin’ today?” Atsumu spit-out, “Why don’tcha put yer mouth to good use?”

He was being such an asshole and you loved every second of it.

Not that would admit it to the already big-headed setter.

You slowly peeled down the cloth, his awaiting cock springing up against his stomach as you went. Large and veiny and all yours, you admired it for a quick second before licking from the base to the tip. Atsumu groaned as his hold went from your neck to your hair, harshly carding itself in your locks.

Your playful attempts at licking his dick met an impatient scoff from the setter, until he finally gripped his dick and angled it to your mouth. While Atsumu knew your body well at this point, the second could be said about you to him. You sucked eagerly at the head, the vibration going straight to his groin as Atsumu moaned heavenward.

“Oh, playin’ dirty?” He asked, between huffs. “Yer gonna get it in a bit, don’t worry.”

A part of you was overly eager for his promise, almost making you want to act out on purpose if only to get a harder sentence later. But when Atsumu pulled at your hair again, you wanted to make him feel real good. After all, this was the first time you had his dick down your throat in weeks, you wanted to taste him fully.

You sucked at his dick eagerly, your hands going to the space your mouth had not yet reached. Slowly picking up the pace, you watched Atsumu go from a hard stare on you to getting lost in the euphoria of your greedy mouth.

And so you hollowed your cheeks, taking him in all the way to the base as his cock hit the back of your throat. You breathed in through your nose calmly, steadying your breath as you looked up at Atsumu. His eyes were fluttering to the back of his head, leaning backwards slightly as only a hand on the seat held him upright.

There was barely any room to move your tongue, but you did your best to feel against the veiny underside of the setter. His groans only got louder and louder, the grip in your hair incredibly painful as he continued to spiral under your pleasure.

It was only a slight surprise when Atsumu pushed you off. Flipping you over the seats, Atsumu leaned down to whisper against your ear, “Only ‘cause ya’ve been good so far”

You steadied one arm and leg on the cushion beneath you for you while the others stretched to the floor to keep you upright. Stomach against the car seats, you were more than ready for this moment. Atsumu wasted no time angling himself with your heat, immediately sheathing himself to the base the moment he got his bearings.

The car was filled with grotesque, wet sounds as his hips met your own. Atsumu barely gave you any time to adjust, thrusting up into you with quick, deep motions. Your own hand gripped the cushion firmly, nails almost digging into the fabric as if it would give you physical reprieve against his strong thrusts.

“Fuck.” you moaned despite yourself.

You were still in the car, plenty of opportunities for anyone to catch you two.

Not that you really cared anymore.

“Only I know what you like,” Atsumu murmured against your skin, his lips latching to the side of your neck. “Only I know how tight this pretty pussy is.”

When you didn’t respond immediately, the setter slowed down, almost taunting you that you were nothing but an eager slave for his dick. You groaned at his teasing, trying to move your hips back to him, but a steady hand on your waist kept you in place.

“Or am I wrong?” He asked against your skin, a hand trailing up your spine.

“Only you.” you groaned back, reaffirming his words.

It was not that Atsumu was not usually as dominant as this, because usually he was like this. But it usually came with some type of warning or reasoning. Last time it was from hanging around beefy boi Bokuto too much and it seemed now his twin was the new target. 

No matter, you secretly loved dominant Atsumu.

“And who’s the only one who will see ya like this?” he asked, almost with an innocent twinge as his hand snaked around the back of your neck.

“You!” You out-cried in between thrusts, head angling upward as you tried your best to get even closer to him.

“Say my name.”

“Fuck me harder, Atsumu! Please!” you whimpered, losing all your faculties.

“There’s my girl,” he praised before sucking another spot on your shoulder. 

You could almost feel the smirk of his lips on your skin.

At least you were getting what you wanted. And as Atsumu picked up back to his rigorous pace, you almost thanked the volleyball god’s for finally getting the much needed friction. The sounds of wet slapping and parallel groans promulgated the car, pedestrians outside innocent to the steamy happenings in Atsumu’s car.

“Fuck!” you screamed.

“That’s it.” Atsumu teased, “Let it out, princess.”

His pace was fast and hard, uncaring of the world around you as Atsumu lost himself in your tight hole. From him to be this brutal, you wondered if Atsumu had been envisioning you like this the entire meal. And now you were going to know exactly how much Atsumu had yearned for you. 

His fingers curled tightly around your hips, bringing you back to meet his every thrust. There was barely anything you could do against his onslaught, gripping the seats around you as if to give you any physical reprieve.

Your brain was focused on nothing but Atsumu, not even realizing that there was suddenly another sound in the car. The heat of the euphoria covered over the sounds of something vibrating somewhere in the car hadn’t even registered in your brain. 

But you surely did not miss the fact that one of Atsumu’s bruising hands had left your hips. And instead, that free hand began to feel around on the floor for the lost item.

“Ay.” Atsumu greeted into his phone, “Somethin’ wrong, ‘Samu?”

You shot a look over your shoulder, confused and wondering why on god’s earth was he saying his twin’s name at this moment. It was only when you saw his phone that you blanched, instantly trying to pull away from the setter. But Atsumu had you pinned, not stopping in his pace as he continued on the phone.

“Ah, (F/N) forgot ‘er phone?” You wanted to wipe the smirk off the setters face, but your hands were occupied in either keeping you help up or covering your mouth from letting out a peep. 

This was Osamu of all people! You saw him on a daily basis and if you were caught on the phone for this you would hardly be able to look him in the eye anymore.

Atsumu took one look at your desperate face and decided to make the most of it.

“Lemme put ‘er on the phone for ya.”

The look of realization must have been obvious on your face, for Atsumu’s smirk only grew as he stared back into your eyes.

Atsumu picked up the hand that was holding you upright on the seat and instead put the phone there. You tried to make a fist instead, a silent warning for if he continued this stupid act, but the setter just ground his hips against yours. You stumbled over a moan and Atsumu shot you a conspiratory look, pressing a finger to his lips to signal you to be quiet. 

“Hey, Osamu?” You attempted to greet in your usually cheerful tone.

“Hey, (F/N).” His voice sounded through the receiver, making you realize that this was well and truly happening.

“I forgot something at the restaurant?” You asked straight to the point, trying to keep your voice even as Atsumu kissed down the valley of your spine. His pace was still slow, but his small caresses were keeping you actively aware.

“Yea, I have yer phone with me since ya left early.” Osamu stated, his voice casual as you heard his loud dishwasher in the background, signalling he was already home.

“Ah, thank you! I can pick-it up next time I see YOU!” You stuttered over the last word, Atsumu pulling out completely just to fill you to the brim in one thrust.

Atsumu’s quick thrusting resumed from earlier and there was little you could do to hold in a small moan this time. Thankfully, Osamu on the other end had yet to catch onto what was truly happening, since he was recounting your next lunch a couple days from now.

“Is that safe? Goin’ a few days without yer phone?” Osamu asked.

“I - maybe?” you panted in response, not even sure what the question was.

Osamu paused, silence reining for a few seconds, enough to make you panic that he had caught on before he asked. “Ya know both ‘Tsumu and I would kill for ya if somethin’ happened cause ya didn’t have yer phone. Let’s try to stop that from happenin’ before.”

Was what he did say and also what you did not hear.

Instead, you felt your hips rocking back to meet Atsumu as he continued thrusting upward into you. One of his hands around your waist followed the arm holding the phone, pushing it back up to your ear as if to remind you of the painful phone call you were on. His other hand went around your waist, traveling to your clit between and rolling it between his fingers. 

This time, there was little you could do to muffle your surprised gasp.

“Whatever, (F/N). I know you can defend yourself, but this is not somethin’ you should fight.”

That wording was odd, you thought in your mind briefly. But any additional thoughts were slammed away with Atsumu’s persistent thrusts.

“I know,” you settled on replying back between pants before stuffing your face back into the car seat.

You expect some type of response back, only continuing to push against Atsumu as the hard slap of skin filled the car. You hadn’t even realized how long Osamu was silent for, before his voice nearly pierced your skin.

“Don’t tell me yer getting dicked down right now.”

Your head shot up immediately, your grasp on the phone tightening as both you and Atsumu heard Osamu hit the nail right on the head with his observation.

There was already an excuse on the tip of your tongue when Atsumu pulled out entirely again before sheathing himself in your dripping cunt. You moaned loudly at the combination of being filled and what his fingers were doing to your lower pearl. There was nothing you could say to get you out of that one.

To your surprise, Atsumu grabbed the phone this time. “Listenin’ to that? She’s mine on every fuckin’ level.”

You heard Osamu laugh through the receiver, before he continued talking. What it was about? You had no fucking clue, the sound just a small murmur in comparison to the sounds of your bodies meeting.

“I hate you so much,” You moaned back, Atsumu still on the phone with his twin.

“Oh? Are you going to cum?” He teased you before turning to the phone, “Ight, talk to ya later.”

How the fuck the both of them could be so casual about this, you didn’t want to know.

Throwing the phone somewhere else on the floor, Atsumu lifted your knee and brought it up to his shoulder. You had very little control in this situation, grasping onto cushions simply to keep from falling. But Atsumu had full control, maintaining his almost impossible rhythm in this deeper position.

“Ahhh, stop.” You weakly protested, “Atsumu, you’re gonna make me…”

“I know exactly what’s going to happen,” he countered.

The speed of his fucking, coupled with the relentless toying of your clit, pushed you over the edge. You came with a near-scream, angling your back as your eyes rolled heavenward. Near simultaneously, you felt Atsumu unload himself within you, holding his hips against yours to make sure you received every single drop.

It was only when your shared essence dripped down to the seat that you realized you hadn’t used a condom. And while you would had usually sighed at the clean-up, especially in a public space like this, Atsumu was already at your back, kissing along your spine.

“Thanks for the creampie, asshole.” you groaned, dropping your head onto the car seat.

“Ya know ya love it, princess.” Atsumu countered, leaning over you as he flipped you onto your back, placing light kisses against the nape of your neck. 

You pushed his face away when you fully realized what just happened, “Fuck, Osamu really heard that.”

“Good, now he knows who you belonged to.” Atsumu stated with a level-expression.

“Everyone knows I’m yours, you asshole.”

“It’s still good to send out reminders.” Atsumu replied, “Especially with the way everyone was openly leering at you today.”

“Fuck, you planned to do this, didn’t you?” you asked, not remembering the last time you ever lost your phone. You swore it was in your bag before you left, even taking a selfie with the old crew before.

But Atsumu just smirked and continued to place butterfly kisses on your skin, not dignifying your question with an actual verbal response was enough of an answer.

“Yer beautiful tits, yer legs… these pouty lips.” Atsumu murmured against your skin between pecks, “All mine. Right?”

Something in his voice just screamed at you that he wanted a real answer. His brown eyes bore into your own, an oddly serious expression for having teased you the pats half-hour. Was he jealous of Osamu? Of how much time you spent together? That was nonsense, he was going to be your future family and your heart only beat for Atsumu.

“I’m all yours.” You answered, putting a hand beneath his chin and lifting it to you. He met you halfway, pulling you into another bruising kiss. 

One of his hands went back around your waist to pull you close to him, your skin felt lighting aflame for the second time as it touched. You felt Atsumu harden within you again, athletic stamina already preparing him for another round it seemed.

“I love you, Atsumu.”

“I love you, too.”

✧   Masterlist

[kodzumie-archived]

First kiss headcannons with Nagito, Kokichi, and Keebo (my 3 favorite boys) please?

❝FIRST KISS❞

Synopsis; What their first kiss looks like.

Featuring; Kokichi Oma and Nagito Komaeda x GN! Reader

Warning(s); Kissing, established relationship, and Nagito’s self-degradation, but that’s all, I assume!

Kodzumie’s Note; I apologize, but I don’t accept requests for K1-B0/Keebo/Kiibo(?) yet! (Woah, so many ways to spell his name, haha.) I, hopefully, one day will, but I’ll gladly do the other two characters for you! Thank you for this request, it was adorable. I hope you’ve had a lovely day! Muah! <3

➤ KOKICHI OMA

⤷ Ever the jokester, he’ll likely play off his advances as nothing more than a quip; yet another jest of his. Every brush of his lips against yours, so close yet too far to be considered a proper kiss. He tests the waters, instinctual caution before truly diving within.

⤷ He’s analytical; inspecting your visage in order to determine whether or not he should follow through with the underlying verity of his intentions. Every pinch of your brows; the twitch of your lips in which form spherical as you gasp; the tops of your fingers brushing atop his chest in either an attempt to push him away or draw him in.

⤷ It’s an insatiable desire; a thirst he’s rendered unable to quench. For as long as he’s been with you, he expected the anticipated kiss. Though he’d began to dread the unpredictable ticking of time.

⤷ A timer held above his head, tantalizingly searing through his mind as a reminder of what’s to come; what he must prepare himself for. He questions whether he should leap, plunging forth and subduing his inhibitions.

⤷ But—albeit he’d never vocally admit such—he’s anxious. Even as he snickers, pulling his face away from yours to admire your flustered countenance, his leg bounces in response to the flurry of butterflies encapsulated within his gut.

⤷ If he was being honest with himself, he truly wanted to share this with you; to share his firsts of such sensual innocence. But where he faltered fell upon you; did you want to share something so intimate with him?

⤷ It was a matter of your approval. After all, the last thing he wanted was to royally embarrass himself at the ontological possibility that you simply didn’t want to engage in such a thing with him. Truly, he’d bury himself alive if your rejection were to occur after he’d already committed to the kiss.

⤷ So—with due diligence—he preserves his temptations and treads upon steady waters. His eyes keen on pinpointing your reposte to his jests; he’d always been skilled in the art of reading others. In due time, he’ll deduce your answer.

⤷ Thus was the beginnings of what Kokichi dubbed as The Chamber of Paradox. Well, for such a theatrical title the notion itself was rather burlesque.

⤷ Amidst this time, Kokichi’s tongue was laced in the plaguing of fallacy; a lie of self-contradictory. Poignant brushing of lips against the plush skin of your cheek as he draws away with a cheeky grin, and an all-too-knowing sheen within his violet orbs.

⤷ He’s aware of your perplexion. He’s tauntingly aware of the dissatisfaction veiled within your pout. And, within that very moment, he instilled that the tendrils of bitter reluctance were merely a kind lie. That feeling—the suffocating fear of rejection—was a falsity born from within the clutches of kindness.

⤷ But there’s a glory within masking his intentions. Tugging himself back, he departs his lips from your cheek and sports his infamous, mischevious grin as you raise a brow at his antics. When questioned for hos reasonings behind the fleeting peck, it’s as though he’s rehearsed it all before.

⤷ “Do I have to have a reason to kiss you?” He jabs. To the surface, he’s composed; delighted, even. Though that’s the beauty of masquerade, isn’t it?

⤷ He was poigantly forced to bare the weight of your underlying conviction; an impression he wished to have been blinded of. Your displeasure to his initiation upon your cheek; a destination far from his true intent.

⤷ Underneath the grin and boisterous laughter, his heart ached. A prick of a thorn dipped in venom, gradually spreading to the entirety of his heart and enveloping him in a state of melancholy.

⤷ He shouldn’t be feeling this way; he knows this. After all, a mutual desire was needed for him to begin to culminate the possibilities of initiating such shared moments. If you weren’t willing to engage then he would respect your wishes. Your comfort a priority far above his own impulses.

⤷ He respected your innermost discontentment. Thus, he strayed from initiating anything he deemed to reflect such a negative swirl of emotions within you. Even managing to restrict himself from pressing his lips against your cheeks; what he once considered a secondary form of jesting.

⤷ Yet it unnerved him that—despite his restrictions of physical intimacy—you still seemed dissatisfied. In fact, you seemed further displeased. He began to question whether or not he’d done something entirely unrelated to upset you.

⤷ Abiding by the tactic he’d come to know best, he pesters you. Picking at your patience to pry apart the genuine root of your vexation.

⤷ Through the ever-so playful baritone of his, he prods. “Are you mad at me?” A chuckle following soon after as he meets your eyes, hands poised behind his hands, casually.

⤷ To the ears of bystanders, his words hold no truth; a mere travesty of fallacious hurt. But you were not a bystander, and you were not heedless to his innermost concerns. And thus, with a sigh, you caved.

⤷ Truly, Kokichi wondered if he’d began hallucinating in that instance. He questioned if the words he’d interpreted you to utter were a mere figment of his mind; that you hadn’t rethought such a thing. A resonant question; why don’t you want to kiss me?

⤷ Well this was certainly a turn of events. You—of all people; of the two of you—were inquiring whether or not he was opposed to kissing you. In another instance, he’d have dubbed it comical. But the redundant suppression of his impulsivity induced his jaw to slack open, surprise evident within his visage.

⤷ “Say, what now?” Though the words passed through his lips as a question, you both were fully aware of the rhetoric implication. His eyes trained on yours as he attempts to decipher your thoughts within the encompass of your thoughts. But Kokichi isn’t a mind reader, and neither are you; the two of you needed to communicate verbally, desperately.

⤷ You’re hesitant. Your reluctance seeling into the quiver of your lips as your fists clench ever-so slightly. You needed to talk it out. No matter how abnormally in sync and tune, internally, with one another, you still needed to vocalize your true feelings.

⤷ So you swallow back the last traces of reticence, and utter your concerns. The avoidance of pecking your lips, the gradual decline of the kisses he’d brush up on your cheeks as a playful greeting, and his general reduction of previous normalcy of physical affection. Everything he’d done, you’d noticed. And it—albeit unintentionally—was swallowing you in grief and self-consciousness. How ironic.

⤷ Kokichi nearly allowed a laugh to slip at the irony of it all; the comical contradiction of both your perceptions. He was wallowing in dejection at your interlaced satisfaction of, presumably, his advancements whilst you were despondent of his withdrawal of the aforementioned advancements. Oh, how key communication was to the engagement of intimacy.

⤷ “Ah, man! And here I thought you didn’t want me to kiss you.” He admitted, jovial swirling within his remark. Your eyes widened instantaneously at his admission. Why on Earth would he assume that?

⤷ Though you don’t verbally voice your dumbfounding, finding it far within your mind as you eye Kokichi. He paces towards you, violet orbs masquerading with flickers of zeal as he nears you, craning his neck to leans closer towards you.

⤷ You rapidly discern his intentions as you, too, begin to tilt your head; allowing passage for him to—after long last—press his lips against yours.

⤷ Even as his lips hover over yours, a mere few centimeters away from yous, he falters. His eyes flickering to yours for some sort of confirmation; assurance that you truly wanted this just as much as he did.

⤷ Yet rather than the nodding of your head to ease his worries upon your potential second thoughts, he’s greeted with the weight of another’s lips atop his own. A reciprocated desire; swallowing his gasp as your hand finds its way through his hair, cradling his head to draw him closer.

⤷ Time seemed to slow, yet paradoxically begin to race as your lips overlapped his, suckling on his bottom lip in which quivered ever-so-slightly in stimulated fervor.

⤷ You pulled away far too soon for his liking, but the lingering taste of you kept him at bay. He could still feel your lips; the vivid, dream-like sensation of pure eloquence.

⤷ In that instance, he’s breathless. Cheeks lit aflame with roseate sincerity, he allows his lips to curl into a smile. One that you, yourself, find to be taken aback by as he steadies his breathing. Of all the smiles you’ve seen from your lover, Kokichi, this was his most solemn one.

➤ NAGITO KOMAEDA

⤷ The initial kiss was long anticipated, yet perpetually prolonged. It’s a dream―akin to a mind-fogged daze―to share something so daringly intimate with you. Especially it being his first kiss, of all things.

⤷ He’s aware of how his inexperience will cater towards a sloppy attempt, and it petrified him; the haunting, ontological realization that he’s bound to disappoint you. He’s tantalizingly conscious of the relentless ways his miserable self could potentially offend you with how out of tune he is.

⤷ Thus, he avoids initiating anything in fear of a countenance of disappointment from you. He wouldn’t be able to handle such an expression from you; the one who believed in him, and assured him he had value.

⤷ It’s tormenting; yearning for something yet persisting to push it beyond his own reach. At times, he claims himself to be a masochist. Relinquishing his desires in favor of uncertainty.

⤷ He’s already milked his luck; being in a relationship with you was enough to be considered a lifetime worth of luck. As much as he yearns for the feeling of his lips upon yours, he musn’t. He’s already been selfish enough, claiming you as solely his lover.

⤷ Yet the humanistic temptation seemed to encapsulate him within its clutches, easing his mind into a fantastical realm of the ever-so ontological sentience of how your lips would feel.

⤷ Nagito, much to his dismay, was reluctantly selfish. His desires to bask within the essence and encompass of you, you, you overriding his belittling mindset of his absent worth. He wants to smother himself in shame at the thought of taking more of you, but the urge is increasingly suffocating.

⤷ He wants you. He wants you in your entirety. A selfish yearning that he undeniably loathes himself for and insists that he never act upon. Subduing to a misery of helpless longing in which he’ll never allow himself to be satisfied with relief. Nagito, really and truly, was a masochist.

⤷ Even as the inklings of inclinations plagued his every thought, seeping into his casual behavior, he resisted.

⤷ For every moment in which he’s seated beside you, his eyes flickering downwards to admire what he truly craved to graze his own lips upon, he resisted. Biting back his urges and swallowing the remnants of greed.

⤷ He knows it’s become unfair to you. A cage of degrading thoughts compiling over him and staining his heart with the perpetual ink of self-loathing has managed to poison your hope amongst him. With every time you steer your face to meet his, gazing into his eyes for any hintings of unwanted touches, he reels himself away; your lips meeting the skin of his cheek instead.

⤷ It devastates him to be poignantly aware of the doubt he’s inflicting upon you; the despair he has induced within you.

⤷ He’s riddled his professions into a mangled cobweb of mutual desire. Each seam a confession of his absolute, undeniable yearning for you; for the entirety of you. A selfish feat, but one you’ve astonished him with how complying you seemed. Would you truly want someone like him to take this much of you?

⤷ Truthfully, he attempted to gauge himself into believing you wouldn’t want him to. That every instance you attempt to initiate a kiss, it was merely a coincidence; a mistake.

⤷ But he knows better. Nagito is as self-loathing as he was clever. He knew how to read people and decipher situations expertly. He was aware of your genuine intentions, and yet he continued to bury himself beneath fallacy; excuses.

⤷ It’s selfish, selfish, selfish! He knows better than to continuously withdraw from you, when he swore his mere purpose was to provide for you. He’s your devoted lover; the one who gives you all that you ask under no condition nor reciprocal.

⤷ And yet you’ve provided him with much more than he could have ever imagined; much more than he was aware he could be seen as worthy of.

⤷ Time and time again, you’ve wagered yourself in order to reel in his temptations; allowing him to succumb to the piercing tendrils of greed. Hook, line, and sinker.

⤷ One can only dwindle in denial for so long before they’re subdued. The ontological realization that you, in fact, share his desire. That the yearning to press his lips atop yours, smothering you in a newfound world of intimacy, was mutual.

⤷ It’s gradual; a build up of overwhelming tempation as well as the underlying guilt of daring to reject your request. Yet, as ticks of time pass on, he finds himself surrendering to the pith of his long-lastingly suppressed infatuation.

⤷ Fingers curling beneath your chin, he secures a hold your face, cradling it to tilt ever-so gently. His grip just barely burrowing itself into the supple skin of your plush cheeks, inducing a slight pucker of your lips.

⤷ Nagito—with hesitancy painting the canvas of his visage—smiles upon your startled yet covetous expression. A glimmer within your eyes that rivals even the stars as you begin to flutter them to a delicate close; anticipation seeping through your lidded eyes.

⤷ He falters momentarily, pondering of what scum like him has the audacity to hold you this way. He knew he had no right to be cradling your face, pulling you in to just barely graze his lips atop your own pair. Your breaths fanning in synchronized gasps.

⤷ But he pushed forth, leaning in to close the prolonged gap between you two, sinking into the kiss.

⤷ A moan is muffled admist your joint lips as he parts his lips to envelope yours once more. He savored the sensation; the warmth of your lips atop his, the brush of your lashes against his cheek, and the engulfed mewls that you’d unintentionally released.

⤷ He treasured the entirety of that moment, smothering himself in the aftershock as each breath he took that melted with yours was electrifying.

⤷ Even as the two of you pulled away—taking the opportunity to relieve yourselves of the tension and regain steady breathing—he realized the true intensity of his passions; his craving that seemed to be perpetual.

⤷ He realized that he, Nagito Komaeda, was a selfish man. Claiming your lips under the engulfing of his virgin pair. He realized his greed as he took a deep breath, and leaned in for another taste.

[prurientpuddlejumper]

A Lipless Face That I Want to Marry, Ch. 7

<- Chapter 6 | Chapter 8 ->

Summary: I gave myself a stomach ache writing this one 🙃

2,961 words

Thirty-two days. Nine surgeries. Twenty blood transfusions.

Sometimes it seemed like just yesterday when everything was going right—you and Frederick were so happy together, his books were selling, your career was flourishing, and he had just asked you to marry him. Sometimes, it felt like a lifetime ago. A state of being so foreign, you wondered if it had even been real, or if you were remembering someone else’s life.

Seasons turned. Cherry blossoms were starting to bloom in the parks around Maryland, and each gust of cool wind carried with it their sweet pink fragrance. The spring air vibrated and sang with life renewed. But where you were headed, the air was stagnant, beige, and sterile.

As the automatic sliding glass doors drew you into the hospital, away from the sun, a piece of your heart withered like a flower. It sank deeper when you considered how the unhappy hours you whiled away in those sterile halls were nothing compared to what Frederick had to endure. He didn’t have the luxury of being able to leave.

Physically, he was beginning to show signs of real improvement. The pneumonia had completely cleared up, and he was starting to receive permanent transplants from the cutting-edge, lab-grown skin created from his own cells. Most of his body was still wrapped up in gauze, but a few places had only received second-degree burns, and those patches were almost back to normal. For the first time since the attack, his odds of not dying were higher than his odds of dying.

Mentally was a different story. His moods grew progressively more sour. With none of his true nemeses at hand to take out his bitterness on, that burden fell upon his nurses, doctors, and upon you—and it was beginning to weigh heavily. At first you didn’t want to see the rift that was forming, even as he cut your visiting hours short in an angry huff, and had fewer and fewer kind words for you. You shoved every fear and frustration into a box at the back of your mind so you could keep smiling. He was just in pain, you kept telling yourself. He just needed time.

You held onto the hope that as he got better, your relationship would return to what it had been before. But he was getting better, and the rift grew wider.

“We’ll still want to wait at least six months to do the procedure, until your infection risk has dropped to baseline levels for a healthy adult, but we’re putting you on the transplant waiting list now,” the doctor explained. She was one of his regular surgeons who had been with him since day one. She wore a white lab coat over blue scrubs, and hid behind a clipboard as she spoke. You liked the that she needed to use the file as a shield—it made her relatable. Always friendly, and clearly a skilled surgeon, but uncomfortable with the heavy emotional talking to patients, especially to Dr. Frederick Chilton, who was always in a bad mood, and always ready with a scathing remark.

But today he had nothing to say. No critique on the hospital’s competence. No casual observations with hidden barbs. Just a silent nod of acknowledgment before turning his head to gaze out the window at the fresh spring flowers, framed by the sea of fake ones you had bought.

Francis Dolarhyde, the Red Dragon, had bitten Frederick’s mouth with such extreme ferocity there was not enough connective muscle left to reconstruct new lips from Frederick’s own tissue. The only option for him to look normal again would be a face transplant—donated facial muscle, skin, and hair from a cadaver—although the doctor explained that the procedure was risky. After taking the transplant, Frederick would be put on immunosurpressant drugs for the rest of his life to prevent rejection, which meant every flu season, or even a coworker with a cold, could turn deadly without careful precaution. But to Frederick, it was worth the risk. He couldn’t bear spending his life being stared at. He couldn’t even stand you looking at the black hole that was his face.

Yet what the doctor explained about the procedure added weight after weight to Frederick’s chest until he felt crushed by despair.

The donated tissue had to be a very close match, or his antibodies would reject the new lips. Unlike receiving a heart or a kidney, his new skin had to be an aesthetic match as well. It could not be from too old a donor, or the skin would lack the proper elasticity. And, unfortunately, most organ donors were not comfortable donating external organs—it ruins the open-casket wake.

So, he could be waiting on a match for a very long time.

You thanked the clipboard-wielding doctor when Frederick remained sulking, not bothering to look up as she left. He adjusted himself slightly to follow a flash of movement—a bird—out the window, and winced as it tugged his unyielding scar tissue. Something tore under his armpit, but he didn’t yelp in pain—he was used to this level of it by now—but his eyes watered.

“At least you can sit up a little bit now. That’s great, isn’t it?” you said in an attempt to cheer him up.

He scoffed, and made no immediate reply.

Years, was all he kept thinking. It could take up to three years to find a match, possibly longer, the doctor said.

“Up to three years or longer,” he growled sarcastically. “She does realize that means nothing? It means any time, or never.”

“I know...”

“But thank god at least I can sit,” he spat bitterly. “A little.”

You were taken aback by his sharp rebuke and fell silent, a cavernous gulf between you though you sat right beside his bed. As you recovered from the sting, however, his words made you smile. He had always been churlish, but recently all of the spirit had been eroded away from his petty attitudes, leaving him defeated and mean. It was nice to hear his churlishness take on a spark of sarcastic sass.

“Don’t lose hope, darling,” you said in an overly-sweet patronizing cadence. “One day you’ll have enough movement back to flip her off.”

He paused, eyes flicking over to you curiously. You had been downtrodden for weeks, too, and he hadn’t expected a joke. He chuckled appreciatively. You wished the good moments lasted longer these days.

It wasn’t as though his life had ended, even if his full cosmetic recovery would take a little longer than he hoped, and even if he was bedridden for several more months. It was that sharp mind and wit that made you fall in love with him, and he still had that. He could keep you entertained for hours discussing some arcane piece of trivia or sharing lurid gossip. Since he was cut off from his normal sources of scuttlebutt, you kept him updated on all the latest rumors you’d learned over dinner with Jack Crawford—about the shitstorm he’d brought down on himself at the FBI when Will Graham went rogue, how Alana and her wife fled the country (but you heard they might be in Cuba), Freddie Lounds being sued again. He always enjoyed hearing about other people’s misfortunes, but today it just made him jealous that you’d been spending time with Jack.

“You have both recently lost a spouse. What comfort you must take in each other,” he insinuated.

“I haven’t lost you, Frederick.”

You went into that sentence thinking you were convincing him that you loved him, but as it closed, you realized you were desperate to convince yourself he wasn’t gone. The more you tried to hold him close, the more you felt him pulling away, and felt a creeping dread that even if he got better, you would lose him. Everything you tried to say to reassure him only made him feel worse, and you wondered if it was your fault. Someone more capable, more empathetic, would know the right things to say. You were a failure. He deserved more.

His professional life, too, hadn’t ended. His injury would barely be a bump in the road to his writing career if he wasn’t so stubborn and prideful. The publisher offered to send a ghostwriter to finish The Dragon Slayer, for which they greedily anticipated a significant boost in sales, considering the author’s headline-making personal involvement in the Red Dragon’s end. Frederick, however, refused to be interviewed by “some insipid amateur.” He claimed they would not understand the nuances of psychology required, and stood firm on the grounds of “artistic integrity,” but the truth was, he did not want anybody else to see him.

His face had not made it into the papers, despite several attempts by Freddie Lounds to sneak into the hospital with a hidden camera, and he did not want any more of the world than absolutely necessary to know the extent of what the Dragon had done to him. He did not want to see the shock in the writer’s eyes at seeing his disgusting lipless teeth. He did not want a stranger to see him inevitably start drooling the longer he spoke—and he hated repeating himself to people who could not understand his impaired diction.

No. Publishing The Dragon Slayer would have to wait, though the possibility of another author beating him to the punch bothered him nearly as much as his missing lips. After an entire month recuperating, he thought he would at least be able to type again, but he could barely move his gauze-mittened fingers.

The world had not forgotten him, evidenced by the occasional fan-mail the publisher forwarded to him. You would bring them in and read them—a lot of get-well-soons, and entreaties to hear his side of the Francis Dolarhyde story. A lot of them were from professionals and students in the psychiatric field, pointing out errors or suggesting contradictory theories. Those were the most fun to read, because Frederick would come alive with indignation, debating with the letter as if its sender could hear him, sometimes making you send a response, seething with superiority as he dictated.

In those brief moments, it was like having the old Frederick back. Then a nurse would come in and need to run a test, or feed him, or something else that embarrassed him back into his shell of anger. Or he would grow too animated and rip one of his grafts, and his zeal for argument would end precipitously with a scream, and a surgeon.

As you shuffled a handful of addressed envelopes and started reading through the latest batch of strangers wishing him a healthy recovery, you were struck by a thought.

“Why haven’t I met your family?”

The wind caught in his throat. His scabbed-over nostrils flared before he answered, “I doubt that is what the letter reads.”

“They never visit, even when… even when you could have died. My parents even flew in that first week, when they heard. They helped me with the flowers. Why do your fans send more condolences than your family?”

Gritting ones teeth does not come easily when ones teeth are constantly bared by default, but Frederick grit his teeth. “My mother is old. She can hardly be expected to travel.”

A plausible answer, but not the full story. His discomfort with the subject only spurred your curiosity. All the time you’d been together, you had simply accepted Frederick as an individual, with no need for a childhood backstory or a group of others sharing his features and last name to complete him. You’d gathered, in snippets, that their relationship was not the best, and were satisfied to leave it alone. But he nearly died. The nurse who asked you about his next of kin looked so confused when you had no one you could contact, and it made you feel foolish for never having asked.

“It’s just, we’re going to be married.”

“So?” he said, a hard, mocking edge to his voice.

“So, if I’m going to be part of your family, isn’t it weird that I’ve never met them?”

Instead of answering directly, he snarled, “Look somewhere else.”

“I wasn’t staring!”

“Look. Somewhere. Else.”

You huffed, and sat back in your uncomfortable plastic chair whose unpadded seat bruised your butt after countless hours, crossing your arms. The box full of anger was overstuffed. You shoved its contents down like clothing in a suitcase to squeeze one more sting of hurt inside, but it began to overflow. “I swear I don’t stare at your face any more than I used to,” you muttered aloud what was supposed to remain a thought, “but now every interaction needs to be a carefully calculated balance between not looking at you enough to feel gawked at, and not not-looking enough to make you feel like I’m averting my eyes from your horrible face.” At the word “horrible,” you wiggled your fingers and wavered your voice the way the vampire running a children’s haunted house would say the word “spooky.”

“I am sorry my suffering is so inconvenient for you,” he said in clipped, cold syllables, and you knew you’d pushed him too far.

“I’m just saying, you know I don’t care about your face. You’re acting the same way as when you got shot, and you got over that. You know I still think you’re beautiful. Can’t you give me some credit and just stop freaking out?”

Being stuck in a hospital bed with limited range of motion, he had few resources with which to express anger, but his chest rose and fell and his breath hissed like steam through his nose. “You...” he seethed. “You never care about the pain I suffer, do you? You, in your fantasy world where you accept my injuries and make it all better—you have no idea what it is like to be violated. To have your body ripped apart! It is not a thing one ‘gets over.’ Beautiful? That is rich coming from one who would not know how to tuck in a shirt without my guidance. It must be lovely in whatever quaint children’s storybook your mind inhabits, but in the real world, appearance matters. It matters to me. Your fetish does not stop every sane individual from seeing ugliness. You believe I should be delighted to have a partner who calls ugliness beauty and trivializes my grief? I should have had you analyzed years ago—my judgment was compromised by my relationship with you. I could not see. Your attachment increases with my physical deterioration. You prefer me broken.”

“That… that isn’t true! How dare—”

“You could barely tolerate me before Abel Gideon took my kidney. I was shot in the face and suddenly you professed your love. What shall it be this time? Ah, yes—marriage. You must be elated.” He rolled the words over his tongue in that distinctively upper-class way that was almost musical, yet bone-cuttingly brutal.

“Stop. This had nothing to do with it—you proposed to me!”

His eyes had been flashing with energy behind the bandages as you argued, but all the anger in them vanished like a message written in steam on a bathroom mirror. They took on a dull, blank glaze.

“Then I take it back,” he said. You wished you believed he meant the accusation. His head shifted toward you, but his dull stare seemed to look right through you to the door. “The engagement is over.”

Your throat dried up. “You don’t mean that,” you said, voice barely above a whisper.

“I will not be with one who gains pleasure from my mutilation. Get out of my room. There are some amputees over in the rehabilitation ward; go explore your fetishes elsewhere.”

He couldn’t be serious, and yet there was no hint of sarcasm or hyperbole in his flat tone. He meant it. You were surprised to find that you weren’t sad. Your hands began trembling uncontrollably, the tiny convulsions working their way from your extremities to your shoulders, tightly clenching in your gut, but it wasn’t sadness. The overfilled box tore open at the seams, exploding its pressurized contents, and weeks of frustration shattered against the walls and cascaded out over the floor.

“Fine!” you stood up from the hated plastic chair so sharply it scraped across the laminate floor and tipped over backward. “I can’t put up with a second more of this, anyway! I can’t keep walking on eggshells waiting for you to snap—if this is the way it’s going to be from now on, then marrying you would be a nightmare.”

If you had seen him flinch as if your words had physically wounded him, then you might have stopped shouting. A surge of pity might have overwhelmed you, and you might have broken down sobbing. He might not have been able to go through with it, then. Seeing you blubbering with heavy, hot tears rolling down your face, he might have said he was sorry, like he wished he could have said if only he were not so much like his father.

But you were too angry to look at him, and you didn’t see him flinch.

So a moment later when your back was in the doorway, instead of I’m sorry, he said, “Keep the ring. Sell it, and get a new apartment. Do not come back.”

“Fuck you!”

[kumeko]

A/N: For Suga, who wanted a Renobowl! I’m sorry this took so long, but I hope I added enough characters/potential romance routes to more than make up for it!

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i. Cloud

It was a ridiculously stupid. Reno stood in the unfinished basement of the cruddy bar, Seven Minutes in Heaven or something. A table stood in the center of the room, multiple painstakingly handmade maps sprawled over it. The walls were covered with blinking lights and cameras that were more stylistic than functional.

 This was the great AVALANCHE’s headquarters. This was where the renegade group of morons thwarted Shinra and somehow survived to tell the tale. This was where all of their slipshod improvised plans were made.

 “This is a shitshow,” Reno muttered, leaning against the wall. How the fuck had they even once lost to these guys? It had to be luck or something equally silly. There was no fucking way it was anything else.

 Even worse? He was joining this merry band of idiots.

 Maybe he had hit his head back in the church.

“You can leave anytime you want to,” Barret growled, glaring at him over the map. The guy overprotective of everything, whether it was his daughter, the bar, or the people he worked with. It was entirely unlike Shinra’s hands-off management team. Reno almost missed the single-worded orders and lingering silence.

 “Nah, I’m good.” Reno smirked, his lips curling back as he bared his sharp teeth. It had cowed the other, lesser members of the team, but Barret didn’t so much as flinch.

 “You try anything funny, and you won’t have a choice,” he warned, before going back to his ‘plan’.

 Reno snorted. Like he hadn’t already gotten that warning from AVALANCHE’s rabid dog. He could still feel the bar digging into his back from when Cloud had pushed him against it, his grip tight on his collar. Despite his constant claims of just being a mercenary for hire, there had been a rough concern in his voice as he’d growled If you betray us to Shinra…

 Cloud’s sword was sharp, his hands strong, and it didn’t take much to imagine just what he’d do if Reno turned traitor.

 Not that he’d planned to; he’d had enough being Shinra’s lapdog. Yet, even now he could feel Cloud’s hot breath on his face, his heart racing at the possibilities. If he had reached up to grab Cloud’s collar too, if he had closed the gap between them, what would have happened? How rough would it be?

 Rude had always warned him he was self-destructive, and well, he wasn’t wrong. Across the dark room, Cloud regarded him with Mako-bright eyes and Reno could only lick his lips in anticipation.

  ii. Tifa

 “Oh great, another one to haul out. Why can’t they leave before they pass out?”

 Blearily, Reno looked up from his empty glass. At the bottom was a drop or two of gin, and he pressed his lips against the rim as he tried to force them down.

 “Oh, you’re awake.”  

 Remembering the voice, he looked up. Standing across the bar, a pretty brunette eyed him wryly as she pried his glass away from him. His hand instantly clenched, but it was too late, she’d slipped it out too fast. There was something about her build, about the muscles on her arm and the smooth way that she didn’t so much as walk as flowed across the floor that reminded him about something. It was like a fighter’s. Or a dancer’s. Both were common enough in this town.

 “Youree hot,” he slurred, trying to reach over and take it back. He smirked at her; it worked about half the time, if he was lucky.

 Unfortunately, he wasn’t lucky today. She sighed, rolling her eyes as she set the cup down behind her. Walking around the bar, she wrapped an arm around his waist and hoisted him up. Immediately, he corrected his previous guess. She was definitely a fighter. That strength was no dancer’s, all muscle and little finesse. He was certain she could toss him over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes.

 “You should take me home,” he leered. No one could claim he knew when to quit.

 She wrinkled her nose and rolled her eyes, clearly used to this sort of talk. Opening the door, she hauled him outdoors. As usual, the slums smelled like coal dust and shit, but her whiskey scent cut through it. He was half drunk on it. “You smell good.”

 The bartender rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, where should I drop you off?”

 “My place then?” You couldn’t claim Reno knew when to quit.

 For his efforts, he was promptly deposited on the hard ground. Swiping her hands against each other as though to wipe off her germs, she firmly replied, “I’m sure you can make it back on your own.”

 Reno chuckled, getting up on wobbly feet. “Tomorrow then?”

 At her responding glare, he laughed the entire walk back.

   iii. Barret

Reno couldn’t tell you why he’d decided to suddenly help AVALANCHE. It certainly wasn’t one of those good reasons, like pity or kindness. It certainly wasn’t self-preservation either—if he wanted to live, he should have stuck with Shinra. The man owned almost all of the city and had more than enough connections everywhere else to make life uncomfortable.

 Then again, Reno had never claimed to be exceptionally smart. He’d always choked against every restraint put on him, always struggled underneath his former boss’s heel.

 (He remembered Tseng’s cold voice as he accepted the sector drop, and maybe that twinge of guilt had been more than just a twinge.)

 Either way, here he was lying on the roof of the building, the helicopter in pieces around him. Rude probably survived the crash, he survived everything, the dumb fuck, but he definitely wouldn’t be happy to see Reno after the stunt he pulled. Shinra had more than enough men to protect him, the ass.

 This was a stupid idea. Which was probably why he didn’t even think when he crashed their helicopter on the pad instead of fighting Barret and his band of merry idiots. What a stupid idea. They’d only live for maybe a few minutes more.

 He coughed and winced. That was a broken rib. Two, if he were unlucky, and Reno was always unlucky. He’d been born under a cursed star, after all.

 “You friggin’ moron.” Reno barely had time to open his eyes before he saw a thick, black arm wrap around his waist, picking him up with an unexpected gentleness despite the rough voice. “What were you doing?”

 “Saving your asses,” he croaked, laughing. Big mistake, his ribs definitely didn’t like that. Spitting blood on the ground, he smirked. “What’re you doing?”

 Barret snorted, running down the stairs in a desperate attempt to escape. Escape what? Reno frowned, his head aching as he tried to remember. There had been a bomb—the building was set to explode and he’d warned them.

 “We’re not gonna make it,” he mumbled. From the corner of his eye, he spotted Tifa and Cloud racing ahead, clearing the way.

 “We’re going to friggin’ try.” Barret tightened his grip as he bounded down the stairs even faster now, taking them three steps at a time. “Can’t believe you did that.”

 “And you’re carryin’ me.” Something about this struck him funny. He wasn’t sure if it was the concussion or if it had always been funny, but it was. He tried not to laugh. His ribs ached nonetheless.

 “Tifa insisted.” Barret ground out, looking a little put out. “You saved us, sure, but it’s probably ploy.”

 “I feel like a ploy,” Reno agreed. That made sense. He was certain that made sense.

 “Yeah, you do.” Barret tried not to jostle him as he turned down another flight of stairs. The whole building was endless. No wonder Reno had taken the helicopter up. “But I guess she’s got a point. No one’s going to kill themselves just to get in.”

 “I’m in?” Reno wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Queasy, though that might have been the concussion.

 “I’m not letting you near us, but you get to live.” Barret glanced at him, the hardened face of a leader. “You’ve earned that much.”

 “Have I?” he questioned, but his head jostled and he fell into the welcoming darkness.

   iv. Sephiroth

 There were many things Reno expected during his time with the Turks, but sitting in a helicopter across from SOLDIER’s greatest warrior hadn’t been high on the list. Considering the kind of wild card he was, he’d expected the brass to keep them as far apart as possible.

 Maybe the higher ups liked flirting with danger too. The chopper’s blades were loud and it was hard to think, let alone talk. Reno glanced at the door, taking in the snowy mountains below. “Why’d anyone want to go to a nowhere like this?”

 Sephiroth didn’t say anything, only coolly regarded him with bright, mako-infused eyes. Something sparked underneath his peaceful expression, some sort of violent storm that was just waiting to explode. Reno didn’t want to be anywhere near when it happened.

 He also wanted to stand right in the middle of it all.

 Rude had always called him a contradictory bitch.

 “I can see them sending me over to this boring backwater town as a punishment, but you?” he raised a brow, egging him on. “Thought you’d be too big to come here.”

 His silver hair almost hid his face as he leaned against the other door and silently took in their destination. Quietly, he replied, “You can stay on the helicopter when we arrive. You aren’t needed.”

 “Huh?” Reno snorted, resisting the urge to yank on his long hair and force him to look at him. If there was one thing that grated on his nerves, it was being ignored. “What, you want to hog all the glory?”

 “There’s two SOLDIERS.” His gold-flecked eyes met his, and Reno was certain now that he saw some spark of untameable emotion behind his glass exterior. “A Turk is useless.”

 “I’ll show you useless.” He smiled wolfishly, all teeth. Sephiroth’s eyes narrowed, just a smidge, and he personally made it his goal to see just how long it’d take for the big man to lose control.

   v. Aerith

 “Oh, you poor dears,” Aerith murmured as she knelt in the single patch of sunlight in the slums. Reno had once wondered just what the odds were that it shone through the hole in her church, that it hit the only place flowers grew, and then remembered he’d hated numbers. “Don’t worry, I’m here.”

 Hands in his pockets, Reno slowly made his way down the aisle to her, his footsteps echoing in the vast room. People might have come here once upon a time, but it was abandoned now, forgotten by all but a lone flower-girl. He glanced at the torn-up flowers at her feet, the over-turned dirt, and snorted. “This happens every time. You should just let them die.”

 “Never.” She immediately rejected his suggestion just as she’d done the last nth number of times this had happened. “You could help, you know, instead of standing there.”

 He shrugged. “They don’t pay me enough to watch you and help you.”

 “You don’t have to watch, you can just help,” she replied sweetly, her innocent smile not quite masking her sharp eyes. The girl was a match waiting to light up. “I won’t tell.”

 “Sure, and Shinra won’t have my head when he finds out.” Reno rolled his eyes. They had this conversation once a week. The company goons would come and get her (they also didn’t pay him enough to help them), she’d beat them up and flee, they’d make a mess of her garden, and she’d fix it up.

 And then rinse and repeat.

 It was boring. If he had to get stuck in this small-time slum with this small-time girl, then at least he should be properly entertained. “Why do you even care about those things?”

 “They’re pretty,” she replied earnestly, her fingers digging in the dirt and righting a plant. “They’re resilient. And…”

 “And?” Reno raised a brow.

 “I like them.” She grinned as she lied. He was pretty sure that the reason his boss wanted her was in her last, silent response. “Do I really need another reason?”

 “For this much work? Yeah.” Reno shrugged.

 Aerith chuckled, tucking a lock behind her ear. “If you say so. But if you change your mind…”

 “Not happening.” Reno snorted, sitting in a pew a couple of rows down. Crossing his arms on the bench in front of him, he rested his chin and watched as she went back to work.

 He was starting to sit closer each time.

 He didn’t want to think about what that meant.

   vi. Tseng

 “We’re balancing the scales,” Tseng ordered, his voice carefully neutral. It was always careful with this guy. The bastard liked to pretend he didn’t have feelings, that he was above all that. That the cold that came naturally to Shinra was also his own.

 Reno knew better. He made the same lies, only he didn’t buy into them. “Yeah…not.”

 “Do you really believe that?” Unfortunately, Rude bought Tseng’s act wholesale. A tragic flaw of his. As soft as he was, he needed some point to this, some reason for it all. There wasn’t. There never would be. And he’d never accept that. His hand clenched as he stared at Tseng.

 Reno knew Tseng’s response before he even opened his mouth.  Whatever the man might feel, he wouldn’t change his mind. “Does it matter?” Tseng raised a brow. Thatching his fingers, he regarded them coolly. His eyes lingered on Reno’s, as though he knew what would come next.

 Maybe he did. They did the same song and dance every time this happened. “What questions? We do the thing.” Reno shrugged, sitting up now. He ran a hand through his hair. “Just like always.”

 Rude looked at him sadly and sighed. “I’ll get ready.”

 Disheartened, he left the conference room, glancing back at Tseng one last time like a kicked puppy. If tactics like that could work, they wouldn’t be in this business in the first place. Reno snorted. As the heavy door slowly closed shut with a soft thud, he finally turned to Tseng. “You’re a fucking liar.”

 As usual, Tseng didn’t even bother to look up from his computer. His fingers ran quickly over the keys, tapping in an unknown code. Maybe if he did it enough, he could become one with the machine. “I didn’t lie.”

 Reno laughed, slipping off the couch and stalked toward the desk. Tseng still didn’t look up and he growled.

 Nothing got to him more than being ignored. “Every time you open that mouth,” he grabbed Tseng’s jaw, “You lie.”

 He didn’t so much as flinch. His eyes were dark. “I’ve never lied.”

 “Even that’s a lie,” Reno muttered.

 Tseng turned off his monitor. “Don’t make a mess on my desk this time.”

 “No promises.” It was all the warning Reno gave before he tugged Tseng closer and crashed his lips on his. There was nothing smooth or gentle about what they did—about the way Reno cleared the desk with a crash or Tseng pulled at his jacket, almost tearing it. This wasn’t a relationship, wasn’t anything more than just pent up emotions needing a release.

 And if that release was something physical, almost always bruising, then all the better. Hell, if he left enough marks on Tseng’s perfectly clear skin, then perhaps he could pretend he’d actually protested what they’d done.

That he’d tried and quelled the ghosts that refused to leave him alone.

  vii. Rude

“What if we flew away?” Rude asked, glancing at Reno as they flew the helicopter to Shinra’s building. There was a strange lit in his voice, one that took Reno several seconds to recognize as hope.

 “Back to headquarters?” he asked, playing dumb. Maybe it’d be enough for Rude to back away like he always did, take the coward’s way out.

 “No,” Rude shook his head. For once, he was being obstinate. “I mean…away.”

 It was his fault. He’d never been one for pillow talk, and that was the reason that Rude insisted on ambushing him everywhere else with these types of conversations. Hell, they were half-way to destroying AVALANCHE, and the man wanted to talk about escaping Shinra. Reno snorted, shutting it down immediately. “Like that’s fucking happening.”

 “But if it could?” Rude asked again, oddly insistent. His hands curled on the throttle as he eased the helicopter up. With his eyes hidden behind his sunglasses, it was hard to tell what he was thinking.

 “Fine.” Sittng back in his seat, he rolled his eyes. “Let’s say Shinra doesn’t kill us or hunt us down. Where would we go?”

 “One of those small towns on the outskirts?” Rude suggested, though he sounded like he’d thought this out for months. Maybe he had.  Maybe if Reno had just pretended to listen and slept through it all when they were in bed, he wouldn’t have to deal with that now. “There’s dozens of those.”

 “There’s a reason they’re small.” Reno scoffed, wrinkling his nose to the idea. He could barely handle them for a mission, let alone living in one. “What would we even do?”

 Rude shrugged, trying to sound casual. “Farm?”

 Reno snorted. “Can you imagine? Or maybe you could, but me? Do I look like a farmer?” He gestured at his body. Even on his best days, he knew exactly how scrawny he was. In all honesty, he’d always been a city boy; even the slums here were more interesting than some backwater town.

 “There’s other things to do.” Rude flicked a switch and pressed a button. “It’s a small town, not the middle of nowhere.”

 “Might as well be.” Reno watched as they got closer and closer to the tower. Any minute now, they’d have to jump out. Getting up, he glanced at Rude. “You good now?”

 Something about him deflated as he nodded. “Yeah. I guess.”

 Reno bit back a groan. This is why he shouldn’t have even encouraged him. What a pain the ass. Looking out the window, he grumbled, “We can talk about this tonight, fine?”

 He could almost hear Rude smile. There was that annoying, hopeful sound again as he replied, “Yeah.”

[sandalaris]

director's commentary for That Pound of Flesh You Owe because i'm obsessed :P -- but also these lines if we're being specific: "She does that to him, mixes up guilt and shame and curiosity within him, like she’s full of all the answers while he hasn’t yet earned the right to the questions." & "He’s always been better at surrender." my fave lines!! XD

Thanks! XD And thanks for sending me the prompt on them! I loved getting a chance to write this!

I kind of sliced out pieces of the ficlet to comment on, if you don’t mind. :)

One thing I knew is that I didn’t want her to be was gentle. There is way too much baggage between them, and your prompt included “hatefucking” and that is such a thing I feel like could work with them that I just went “yes” and used that as my jumping off point.

He can feel her teeth, human and blunt, against the closed press of their lips

I feel like culebras would have a thing when it comes to teeth (their own are tied to everything from fighting to reproduction), a sort of noting of them that happens more often than a human does. But that line also plays into the fact that this is about the other side of passion, desire rooted in a harder, angrier source. I almost had her bite him as another way of trying to hurt him, but I think the fact that he is culebra, and their much more complicated interpretation of biting, would’ve made her decide against it. Maybe if I ever write that longer enemies-with-complicated-feelings-who-fuck fic about them that’s been floating in my head I’ll explore the concept of biting between them.

...she all but hauls him closer, one hand fisted in the collar of his shirt while the other cuts half-moons into his skin. He wonders if she’s trying to draw blood, slice into him the way he did her over a year ago. Something shivers in anticipation in his chest at the thought and his feet stumble after her as she falls back a step.

... Richie’s hand comes up to rest against the side of her ribs in an futile effort to steady her before she slaps it away, brows drawn in a glare like he tried to take liberties, and maybe he did. Maybe killing her old man gave her the keys to this song and dance of theirs, leaving him groping in the dark for the rules and edges.

Dakota is very much driving things, very much in control of what is happening between them. And yeah, she is trying to hurt him, at least a little. This is about her in her mind, her and her messed up feelings about him and what he has done to her and her family. (And that includes Freddie.) And I only touched on it, but Richie kind of wants her to hurt him here. There’s a certain thrill to it, in part because he hurt her before and in part because she’s human.

... he looks at her, studies that unforgiving flint in her gaze and the special brand of defiance in the tilt of her jaw, and wonders.

Why are you here? he wants to ask, wants to form the words and make the demand into the empty space between them.

Random factoid: This was actually where I first started the fic, with him wondering why she was there and what she wanted, because I can never write things in order.

There’s an odd almost power play underlining this (”almost,” because Richie isn’t trying for more here) and the fact that he doesn’t ask, doesn’t speak because she said not to, and that she doesn’t want him to speak, plays into that. Or maybe its better to say there’s a clear dominant party here, and that they both know who that is.

She does that to him, mixes up guilt and shame and curiosity within him, like she’s full of all the answers while he hasn’t yet earned the right to the questions. He should hate it, being the type of man that he is. Should, but doesn't.

Excuse the rambley mess: So much of those lines comes from how I see Richie and the mindset I think Dakota would be in to start something like this with him.

Part of this is rooted in the fact that Richie is often shown on screen wanting/needing things contradictory to what he thinks and says he wants/needs, which is a whole meta in and of itself so I won’t dive too deeply into here. He has an interesting relationship with guilt to begin with before adding his suddenly being faced with the consequences and results of his actions. Some of what he did without reaction/remorse before the Twister he becomes all torn up about later, and while I don’t think he’d ever reach Monica level of guilt over Earl (the whole cop vs criminal aspect, plus it being an act of survival in his mind), I do think he felt no small amount of regret towards Dakota. Although that’s different from Monica too, because he feels guilt not over killing Earl but rather over how Dakota was hurt by his taking her dad from her. And he focuses on her in season three (at least when she’s around), at least in part because he thinks he owes her. And he does, but I don’t he realizes he can’t actually pay her back, that he won’t ever really make up for what he did. But he was drawn to her from the beginning and that didn’t really change once she revealed herself to be Earl’s daughter.

And then there’s Dakota and her own complicated feelings towards him (as well as a healthy dose of confusion), and her blatant refusal to make things easy for him. She’s not going to explain the nature of human behavior to him, isn’t going to stop and worry about what he’s thinking about why she’s doing what she’s doing (and he picks up on that). She has her own intelligence, and its very different from Richie’s (not sure if the show ever confirmed her truly being a psychologist or if that was just a ruse, but it’s possible she does have a degree in human behavior) and her motivation is murky to him at best.

Anyways, all that came together in my head so I could basically say Richie is mess of emotions when it comes to Dakota and that only makes him drawn to her more.

He settles for the grasping at the hem of her denim jacket, bunching the material up almost questioningly but she doesn’t push him away...

...Her hand comes up to grasp his chin, yanking downward on his jaw and forcing an entrance for the sharp thrust of her tongue, and he gives in with a twisted thrill.

More of their clear cut roles here, definitely some hits of sub/domme undertones and where they would fall in those categories. And Dakota isn’t asking, she is going to take what she wants here and if Richie doesn’t like it he can walk away.

...hands dropping to the wrinkled collar of his shirt and yanking him down again, hard enough he feels the button at his throat give with a muted snap...

I don’t know why, but I was very determined that Dakota was going to snap a button on Richie’s shirt. Specifically that top one he always keeps closed. She was going to do it, and I just had to figure out when.

He’s always been better at surrender.

I will argue until the cow’s come home that Richie is a naturally born follower. Which plays into his submissive tendencies in this ficlet. Richie is constantly putting himself under other people’s control/power. Even when given power, something he claims he wants, he immediately turns around and gives it up to someone else. Despite what he thinks, he does not actually want to be in charge, and he shows that in his constant surrendering to others’ authority over him.

And I’m really glad you liked the final line, because I almost deleted it when I first typed it out because I feared it might sound too cheesy.

[minervacasterly]

~No Other Way: Mary’s Failed Escape Attempt~

As things between Lady Mary and her half-brother, King Edward VI got progressively worse, her imperial cousin, Charles V took action. He sent imperial ships that were disguised as merchant ships to England. The plan was to take her away from England and use her as a figurehead to intimidate Edward VI and his council. However, like every other escape plans, these failed.

“On the evening of Monday, 30 June 1550, three imperial warships arrived off the coast of Essex. Further out to sea, they were supported by four larger vessels. This little fleet, commanded by the Dutchman Cornelius Scepperus, had encountered a flat calm. The next day one of the ships made its way to Stansgate and a small boat, with two men in it, rowed ashore. They claimed to be grain merchants and took with them a sample of their corn, but when they got ashore they found things unnervingly quiet. There was no one to meet them and they were obliged to return to their ship without having spoken to any local people. They had, however, been observed, and by quizzical eyes. People living around about, especially in the small port of Maldon at the head of the Blackwater estuary, knew of the rumors and wondered about the true motives of these Flemings who had materialized overnight. They were not convinced that the grain vessel was alone or that it had become with innocent intent. Though there was a long history of problems with Scottish pirates plundering the imperial merchant fleet, which might explain the need for an adequately defended ship, something about this vessel seemed wrong. The real purpose, they feared, was altogether more sinister. Nearby at Woodham Walter the Lady Mary had been in residence since early May. Her confrontation with the government was well known and the possibility of her attempting to flee England had been all the talk in this part of Essex for weeks. It was hard to keep anything secret in a large household, where people came and went and not everyone was trustworthy, even if they seemed devoted. Yet few people could have anticipated quite how the enterprise would finally be abandoned. The saga of Mary’s abortive attempt to escape from England to what she hoped would be a secure haven in the Low Countries was well documented at the time. It has elements of almost surreal comedy: disguises, frantic attempts to keep something secret of which the authorities were well aware and the final, complete deflation of Mary’s refusal to seize the chance when offered. At its heart was a troubled woman under severe strain, who entertained the fantasy that creeps into the minds of many people who are stressed almost beyond their mental resources–that running away offers a simple solution to all their difficulties. It is less the act itself which matters, more its contemplation. Perhaps this explains the contradictory nature of Mary’s behaviour in the summer of 1550. A woman who had shown remarkable fortitude over so many years could not, for a time, cope with yet another assault. To call this weakness would be a harsh judgement of Mary, who could not forget the past … Charles V also thought long and hard about whether, in agreeing to Mary’s repeated requests that he should furnish her with a means of escape, he was doing the right thing. As always with the emperor, his doubts about the wisdom of the enterprise were partly inspired by an uneasiness about whether he would actually be doing his cousin a service and partly overshadowed by political considerations. Aside from the hazardous nature of getting her away by ship, once gone she became financially dependent on him and could not serve his purpose by acting as the rallying force of principled opposition in England. He was also preoccupied with his preparations for leaving Brussels, which he did at the end of May, to go and take up residence at Augsburg. Ill and unhappy, beset with costly wars and rebellious subjects, this weary man who was losing his grip on his vast empire must have found Mary’s troubles little more than a minor irritation. His instinct, and his instructions to Van der Delft, pointed towards calming Mary down and persuading her to temporise. Eventually, he reluctantly agreed to help her. The plan for Mary’s flight was put together over a two-month period between May and July 1550 and the princess was very much its moving force. She had convinced herself that not just her religion but her life was in danger. This was the answer she gave to Van der Delft, when he pointed out to her that, if the king died, her absence could deprive her of the crown and would probably ensure the triumph of religious change for good: ‘If my brother were to die, I should be far better out of the kingdom; because as soon as he were dead, before the people knew it, they would despatch me too; there is no doubt of that, because you know that there is nobody about the king’s person or in the government who is not inimical to me.’ The problem with following the emperor’s advice on temporising was that her own, grim experience told her quite the reverse: ‘I fear I may tarry too long,’ she said. ‘When they send me orders forbidding me the mass, I shall expect to suffer as I suffered once during my father’s lifetime; they will order me to withdraw thirty miles from any navigable river or sea-port, and will deprive me of my confidential servants, and, having reduced me to the utmost destitution, they will deal with me as they please. But I will rather suffer death than stain my conscience.’ Her suspicion of the council was profound. They were ‘wicked and wily in their actions and particularly malevolent towards me’ … Mary had given some thought to the details of her escape. Van der Delft acknowledged that the first plan developed was Mary’s idea and he believed it could be made to work. Or perhaps it would be truer to say that he hoped it would work, because it relieved him of involvement, and the thought that he might be compromised alarmed him. Like Mary, he had a regard for his own personal security and that of his family. His desire to be of service to the princess was tinged with growing anxiety, especially as he was ill and arrangements were already in hand for him to leave England himself. The essence of Mary’s scheme was that she should be as close to the sea as possible, to facilitate her escape by water … Royal lady as she was, Mary did not initially contemplate going alone. She wanted with her ‘four of her ladies whom she trusts more than the rest’ (interesting to note that she evidently had reservations about some of them) plus Rochester himself and two unnamed gentlemen, one of whom was ‘very rich but would willingly give up all that he possesses to follow my lady to a place of safety’. Apart from these people, Mary would take nothing with her ‘except her rings and jewels. The plate she uses belongs to the king,’ wrote the ambassador, ‘as, I suppose the tapestries and other furniture do.’ Van der Delft said that no one apart from himself, his secretary and Rochester knew of the princess’s plan. Whether that was true or not, it involved too many people to be practical. Then the possibility of a boat being procured in England evaporated. The month of May came and went with Mary still in Essex and still exhorting the ambassador and his master to help her leave. Matters stalled when the government introduced restrictions on all movements at night, so that ‘no roads or crossroads, no harbours or creeks, nor any passage or outlet’ escaped the vigilance of ‘good folk who had something to lose’. This was a reference to the possibility of further summer uprisings like those of the preceding year, but a secondary motive for the council may have been to restrict Mary and frustrate her possibility of flight. The plan that was finally put into action took shape after Charles V had left Brussels and was approved by him on 25 June. Its driving force may have been his sister, Mary of Hungary, the regent of the Low Countries, who was more inclined to make decisions and take action. She also wanted to ensure that any repercussions were minimised, particularly in the event of failure. This meant waiting until Van der Delft had left, so he could not be implicated, and it also required that his successor, Jehan Scheyfve, a man of whom the regent did not think much, was kept completely in the dark. Thus it fell to Jehan Dubois, secretary to the imperial embassy in London, to take on the burden of managing the revised escape plan. He was more than equal to the task; in fact, he carried out his part of it in exemplary fashion. But it did not succeed. The emperor foresaw difficulties when he gave his sister his guarded approbation. All concerned should be aware of the need for flexibility and not try ‘to reckon the thing too exactly from day to day, as if the sea were a fixed and invariable factor, permitting such undertakings as may be carried out on land’. He thought that there was inevitably some danger and that speed was vital, or the details might leak out. ‘As for disguising our cousin,’ he wrote, ‘I will leave that to those in charge … but no disguise need be used as to whether or not I knew of the undertaking, and it will be better to be quite open about it … for we have the best of reasons and have done all we could to protect our cousin’s person and conscience … and holding back as long as possible from this extreme measure, which it has now become imperative to resort to because of the attitude adopted in England.’ Charles was evidently not given to cloak-and-daggery and he was determined to put the blame on Edward’s councillors. He was more concerned that the pursuit of Scottish pirates, the pretext for his ships being in English waters, could lead to difficulties if the ambassadors expected from Scotland at any time arrived in Brussels before the ships set sail. In the event, none of the difficulties foreseen by Charles V happened. The reason Mary did not leave was straightforward. She had changed her mind. Or, put another way, when faced, at last, with the opportunity to go, she could not bring herself to do it.“

As before, Mary was faced with a difficult choice. She could have left and enjoy moments of bliss. But these would pass in time. She probably remembered the lessons in history. Although she had the fighting spirit of her Trastamara grandparents and Tudor grandfather, she knew that it would be a huge gamble to run away and then attempt to take the throne. Not to mention, the people who still believed in her. Many of them would still support her, but returning back wouldn’t be easy. Everything her enemies had accused her of, would start to ring true, and she could end up the same way as La Beltraneja, de la Pole and other pretenders who fled to foreign countries for protection and when they tried to come back to claim what they viewed was rightfully theirs, they failed. And then there was also the more personal aspect of this: her mother had refused the easy way out, clinging on to her title of queen and asking Mary to obey her father but also to persevere. This was one of her most harrowing trials where the end lesson was: she was on her own and could trust no one but herself and rely on her unwavering faith to see her the coming struggles.

Source quoted: The Myth of Bloody Mary by Linda Porter. For more information on this failed escape, I also recommend H.F.M. Prescott’s biography on Mary, The Spanish Tudor. She doesn’t have a favorable opinion on Mary but the biography is repleted with plenty of details and and this is one subject that she expands upon.

[brahkest-fr]

👀 long ass post ahead

Toad is one of my fav beans right next to Chimera, the first dragon I drew a skin for, and the only male pc in my lair lol. He’s Chimera’s right hand man and deals with all clan matters when she’s not available and/or going off about the Plaguebringer in a fever dream. He’s generally a kind if but very strict soul who wants the best for the clan even if it means being the bad guy. He’s more logistics minded, thinking about the numbers rather than the people and that’s what led him to the Pustules in the first place. In his old clan, he was the treasurer but his greed put him down fragile relationships with beastclans who in turn raided his lair when he betrayed their trade agreements. Nothing was left of his friends and family except their pearls which he carries around with him and hoards in his room. In a very shallow existence, he relives memories not of his own after discarding his own pearl ages ago - perhaps in an attempt to exempt himself from what he did or just to live out delusions that his clan is still alive. Chimera picked up the sad sod after promising him a safe place to store his dozens of pearls in return for his management skills and infallible loyalty. And so he strives not to fail again.

I showed her a bit before but Nickel is a very good... something? She claims to be a doctor but most would only visit her as a last resort. She has a rather peculiar habit of observing her patients, making erratic but incredibly overly detailed notes on everything she sees. Her office contains various bits of dragons, particularly imperial antlers which she loves to collect. She has an obsession with body parts, especially if they’re not attached to the original owner. However, she’s not obtuse enough to actually harm others - she is a “doctor” after all. Her skills in surgery are unquestionable though as she can repair the most horrendous bodily mutilation to near perfection. Yet she doesn’t seem to apply that skill to herself with much of her body scarred and replaced by opal and her right arm likely belonging to a different dragon. But enough about her, she’d rather talk about you~

Vivian here is one of my few lv25s and a very good boy. Long before joining the clan he was a traveling serial killer and my first sentence is now highly contradictory. He’s a bit of loner, using poisons to debilitate his targets so he can avoid mess and conflict. He’s incredibly meek and weak willed but becomes violently infuriated when his poisons don’t work as he intended. This is not to say his poisons are ineffective however. He likes to predict particular reactions and if they’re not met, he’s quite the manic trying to figure out why someone died 1 second quicker than he anticipated. His introduction into the clan was through Toad whom he attempted to poison as one of his usual experiments and now he serves as Chimera’s personal assassin whenever she needs something done quietly. He thinks Chimera is a bit of a brute but he’s far too polite to say anything. When not coming up with 500 new toxins to close off a dragon’s airways, he spends his time writing plays for the local theater to perform.

[daggerfall]

Hi! I'm wondering if you could talk a bit, if you want, about the Night Mother not being Mephala? Because where I am as a lore-beginner-ish, it seems not wholly implausible that she could have been Mephala at some points? I know she's a corpse with a voice in Skyrim, and she's depicted as a probs-living person in 2920 (though idk what that author's source is), so it seems like her ID varies. And given that the M. Tong worships Meph and the DB broke off the MT, could she never have been Mephala?

I’m gonna preface this with the fact that @the-greymarch wrote most of this word for word and I’m posting that instead of my own research since it’s so much better written and researched than what I could have come up with.

The TL/DR is that there’s only one book that says the Night Mother is Mephala, and it’s written by someone with an agenda against the Brotherhood. That’s the whole point of TES lore, that the narrators are unreliable and typically have biases. Looking an in game evidence, we still don’t come to the conclusion that the Night Mother is really just Mephala in a trenchcoat, even ultimately we don’t come to ANY singular conclusion on who the Night Mother is. 

Anyway here we go. 

The book that offers the explanation of the DarkBrotherhood’s Night Mother being Mephala is Fireand Darkness: The Brotherhoods of Death. This in-game text – written by aMorag Tong assassin - says that before the Morag Tong worshipped Mephala, theyrevered Sithis. The author claims that the Morag Tong STILL revere Sithis, inthe same way that the Brotherhood does. They claim that the schism lies in theNight Mother – when the False Gods of the Tribunal took over, the Morag Tongceased to worship Mephala and turned their sights to Vivec in order to continueoperating as they were.

“TheNight Mother, my dear friend, is Mephala. The Dark Brotherhood of the west,unfettered by the orders of the Tribunal, continue to worship Mephala. They maynot call her by her name, but the daedra of murder, sex, and secrets is theirleader still. And they did not, and still do not, to this day, forgive theirbrethren for casting her aside.”

So Fire and Darkness implies that Mephala is the NightMother and the split between the Tong and the Brotherhood was due to the Tong’sexchange of Mephala worship to Vivec, who was said to be her Anticipation.

One other crucial piece of information we get from Fire andDarkness is that 2920: The Last Year ofthe First Era is a piece of historical fiction. Well researched, accordingto the author, but still fiction.

2920 is a seriesof 12 books, one for each month of the year 1E 2920. In this series, the NightMother is shown as a living woman – a leader in the Morag Tong. Fire and Darkness disputes thisdirectly, saying that the Night Mother has never historically been associatedwith the Tong, only the Brotherhood.

There is on other text that claims that leaders of the MoragTong were known as a/the Night Mother is TheBrothers of Darkness. It claims that all leaders of the Tong, and thenafter that the Brotherhood, have been called Night Mother, as a title. Whetherit’s the same woman they’ve been commanded by since the second era is claimedto be unknown.

“What isbelieved is that the original Night Mother developed an important doctrine ofthe Morag Tong-the belief that, while Mephala does grow stronger with everymurder committed in her name, certain murders were better than others.”

However from my reading of this text, it seems to besuggesting that the Tong no longer exist.

“It is more difficult to date theEra when the Morag Tong re-emerged as the Dark Brotherhood, especially as otherguilds of assassins have sporadically appeared throughout the history ofTamriel.”

One other book that mentions the Night Mother is Sacred Witness, a supposedly trueaccount of the author meeting with someone who calls herself the Night Mother.In this one, the Night Mother supposedly claims she was a thief at the verybeginning of the thieves guild, and she claimed that she suggested a part ofthe guild be dedicated to “the arts and sciences of murder”.

“TheMorag Tong was around long before my time. I know I'm old, but I'm not thatold. I merely hired on some of their assassins when they began to fall apartafter the murder of the last Potentate. They did not want to be members of theTong anymore, and since I was the only other murder syndicate of any note, theyjust joined on.”

The assassination of the last potentate was in 2E 324 when Versidue-Shaiewas assassinated by a Morag Tong in its infancy and his position taken over byhis son who was assassinated along with all of his potential heirs in 2E 430[which ended the Second Empire].

Yet ANOTHER book, The Night Mother’s Truth, claims that theNight Mother was once a Dunmer woman who was a member of the Tong. Supposedly,after the murder of the Last Potentate, Sithis itself spoke to her and shebecame pregnant with five children, and two years later she killed her childrenas Sithis ordered. The townspeople were so horrified by her act that theykilled her one night. Then 30 years later she spoke to a man passing by and shenamed herself Night Mother and named him Listener.

“And sothe Unholy Matron set her servant on his path - he would found a neworganization, a guild of assassins known as the Dark Brotherhood, in servicenot to Mephala, but to the Dread Lord Sithis.”

So as you can see, the in-game books are extremelycontradictory to each other! And it’s no wonder – the series relies prettyheavily on the concept of “unreliable narrators” – that is, you can’tnecessarily trust what people are telling you in game OR reading in thesebooks! Think Holden Caulfield in Catcherin the Rye; you really shouldn’t believe much of what he’s saying.

So if the books aren’t reliable, where do we turn? Let’slook at the Night Mother(s) in the games!

There has been a character with the title of Night Mother inevery main series game since Daggerfall, where the title belonged to a Khajiitwoman (according to the game files). In Morrowind, the “Night Mother” title wasgiven to Severa Magia, the local Dark Brotherhood leader who became anassassination target for the Tong [who the Nerevarine must kill if they jointhe Tong]. In Oblivion she appears as a spectre who speaks only to theListener, which is similar to her appearance in Skyrim where she is a corpse ina sarcophagus and speaks only the Listener.

In ESO, the Night Mother is mentioned a few times – once byElam Drals, who gives you minor contracts in the brotherhood. He brings her upa couple of times in dialogue [“I'm sure the Night Mother feels the same way.You don't see us marching armies out for slaughter, after all." And “Aslave dies slowly, one arduous task at a time. It's enough to make the NightMother Weep!"] and there is also a book in ESO called The Black Hand that states the confusion around whether the NightMother/Dark Mother is a person or a deity or what. The author of this bookclaims that the leaders of the Brotherhood sanctuaries are called Matron ratherthan Night Mother themselves, as several other books claim and is true for Oblivion,Skyrim, and ESO.

Additionally, Speaker Terenus, who recruited you, brings herup at least 29 times based on UESP control-f “night mother”. The way he talksabout her is very similar to how Lucien Lachance, speaker who recruited you in Oblivion, did; Bride ofSithis, mother of all us assassins, being who whispers contracts to theListener, all that. And despite ESO taking place an entire era before all otherTES games, it is more similar in its representation of the Night Mother toSkyrim and Oblivion than Morrowind and Daggerfall. Probably a consequence of itbeing release more recently, but the point still stands. We don’t ever meet theNight Mother or Listener, since we only advance to Silencer, but all of thesigns point in that direction.

So! With all of this conflicting information, where do weend up? There isn’t really an overarching answer to be found on the identity ofthe Night Mother. In Daggerfall and Morrowind the title belongs to the leaderof a sanctuary, and in Oblivion, Skyrim, and (implied) ESO, she is a spirit ofsome kind that speaks only to the Listener.

I think at least one conclusion we can draw is that NightMother is not Mephala. There is exactly one piece of evidence in favor, and itis a book by a Morag Tong member who likely has a vested interest in saying so.Other accounts, though contradictory to one another, at least have more thanone confirmatory piece of evidence elsewhere.

I’m sure buried somewhere in this mess is the truth! But Ican’t tell you what it is, just a little of what it is really, really unlikelyto be.

Maybe we’ll get even more different info in TES6! Who knows?

[letterboxd]

Helpers.

“I feel like after you have kids, everything else seems like it’s for f—king pussies. Everything else is f—king bullshit. You and your brunch—f—k you!”

Filmmaker Kestrin Pantera talks to Letterboxd about family, karaoke, improvisation and her new film Mother’s Little Helpers.

Of the many films that premiered at this year’s South By Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas, Kestrin Pantera’s Mother’s Little Helpers, which played in the Narrative Spotlight section, had perhaps the most classically Austin feel about it.

As well as taking place in the Texan state capital, the film is heavily informed by a certain kind of bohemian nostalgia that permeates Austin.

Pantera also co-stars in the film as Sadie Pride, one of four adult siblings called home to Austin when their mother Joy (former Saturday Night Live cast member Melanie Hutsell)—an ageing folk rock hanger-on whose one claim to fame is taking the photo that adorns an iconic 70s album cover—is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Sadie’s siblings comprise the scattershot Julia (played by UnReal scene-stealer Breeda Wool, also a producer on the film), doctor-to-be Lucy (Milana Vayntrub, highly memorable in shows like Love and This Is Us, and to be seen as Squirrel Girl in Marvel’s New Warriors, if that ever happens) and wayward Jude (Sam Littlefield), who’s on house arrest.

Not one of the four siblings wants to be there for their mother, and they all still bear the very visible effects of being raised by a “cool” parent, one who isn’t done messing with their lives, even though she’s at death’s door.

‘Mother’s Little Helpers’ writer, director and actor Kestrin Pantera.

Pantera has a long history with Austin, having performed there in bands in her twenties, and through her business the RVIP, (a “mobile karaoke lounge housed inside of a customized RV that serves as equal parts transportation and entertainment—it’s called transportainment”), which would come to Austin regularly.

That local familiarity informs Mother’s Little Helpers to no small degree. The film is an authentic character dramedy that captures the contradictory frustrations of family relationships.

Pantera sat down with Letterboxd in Austin soon after the film’s SXSW premiere, and proved as cool in real life as her name sounds. Very few people could seamlessly drop into conversation that they used to play the electric cello, but with Pantera, it made perfect sense.

Mother’s Little Helpers concerns a topic that has made for some fascinating ensemble performances on film through the years—how modern day grown-ups interact with their parents. Kestrin Pantera: I think it’s so fascinating—how do you deal with a parent that wasn’t really a parent, more like your friend’s drug dealer? I remember the first time my mom said “cool”, because parents didn’t used to say stuff like “cool”. When my parents started talking like me when I hit my 30s, it was so weird. My husband’s family, who this film was inspired by, they were cool. My parents aren’t cool. What is it like having cool parents? Well, it’s a mixed bag.

So the real life elements of this story come from your husband’s family? We had been doing RVIP events in Austin for ten years, and [my husband] Jonathan’s dad, he was our runner. That was how I formed a relationship with this dude, he sang karaoke and helped move our shit in a truck. He would come to Burning Man with us, he was like this awesome cool dad. But then when he got sick, there was a lot of reluctance from his kids to come home, and I was like, “What the fuck is wrong with you? He’s awesome!” And then I was like, “Ooooohhh, maybe if he’s not your dad he’s awesome.”

Is that why the film is set in Austin? It was [also] inspired by when I had real life experiences in Austin. I used to tour in rock bands. In my 20s I would bring my electric cello out here and play shows and drink all day and party all night. There’s a fun charm to it. And my family’s from the south as well, so for me, homecoming and dealing with extended family lives in the world of the south. And it’s got that outlaw-country Willie Nelson vibe and ethos. Austin has just got that soulful vibe, it reminds you of the Allman Brothers, or Lynyrd Skynyrd or Tammy Wynette or Wanda Jackson.

Your co-stars are credited as co-writers on this film—is that to reflect the degree of improvisation? That’s a convention in filmmaking that I think I would like to democratize a little bit. It is really cool to just be like, “I wrote this—a Kestrin Pantera show”, as I did with my first movie [2014’s Let’s Ruin It With Babies], but that movie was improvised and everyone made up all their shit and I just took credit for it. Any movie that has improvised performances, the editor is really the writer. I wrote it, because I edited the pieces together.

I think every actor really wants to have input into their dialogue. So why not just have really good actors and let them say whatever the fuck they want and also give them credit for that? I wrote the outline, I wrote the story, I wrote the characters, I wrote their back stories, but then we all came together as a team and filled it with their own lives. Also, I conned them into doing a movie for very little-to-no money, so why not be generous with credit? I feel like improvisers should get a little bit more credit for the writing that they do. It’s not a manifesto, it just felt like the polite thing to do when these people were giving everything to me.

The cast of ‘Mother’s Little Helpers’ at SXSW 2019.

How smooth was the process of discovering the dialogue with the other actors as you went along? In my mind, I knew what was happening because I was thinking about the edit. And the actors were generally confused because they didn’t have that picture as clearly in their mind as clearly as I did, even though everyone had the outline and everything. Most of [the improv] happened on camera, and if someone said something that was wrong, I would just be like, “No, no, no, this way.” I would just side bark. We would shoot a really sloppy first take, 300 percent too long and everyone would be figuring it out as they were going along. But then we’d figure out the shape of the scene in that first take, and be like, “Keep that, keep that, lose this part.” I would always just be thinking about that master sequence in my [Adobe] Premiere timeline. People were really flexible.

Did you have existing relationships with all the actors? Everyone was my friend, except for Melanie, who I’d met once. Breeda and I would go to parties together. We all sang karaoke together in the RVIP Lounge, so that was our core “patient zero” relationship. Milana and I would do excursions with one another, we took a class together, Breeda’s just one of my favorite, weirdest people. And Dave Guintoli [who plays Sadie’s husband], I was in an acting class with when I first moved to Los Angeles. It was literally just having the balls to call the most talented people I knew and just hope that they didn’t laugh in my face.

A press release for this film stated the “production was helmed entirely by women”—was that by design? It was an accident. It just happened that way, and I loved it. It was directed and written by a woman, the camera department was led by a woman, all of our producers and production team were women, our post-supervisor, up until the home stretch, was a woman. Pretty much everyone behind the camera in any leadership role, was a female.

Hiring moms I think is the smartest thing to do because moms are really good at multi-tasking and keeping zen and dealing with big emotions while showing up on time, and like, delivering the shit. I feel like after you have kids, everything else seems like it’s for fucking pussies. Everything else is fucking bullshit. You and your brunch—fuck you! Obviously I wouldn’t be biased against hiring someone based on whether or not they have children. But I noticed that the moms were the most responsible and effective and showed up early and actually anticipated the needs of everyone in a way that I’d never experienced before.

‘Mother’s Little Helpers’ is currently seeking distribution.

[aion-rsa]

Marvel’s Loki Episode 3 Raises Some Questions About the TVA

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This article contains spoilers for Loki episode 3.

Back in the first episode of Marvel’s Loki, viewers get a helpful expositional rundown about the Time Variance Authority from Miss Minutes (Tara Strong), a friendly cartoon clock.

In a ‘50s style orientation video, Miss Minutes described how the Time Keepers created the TVA and all the employees within it to maintain the Sacred Timeline and avert temporal chaos. Makes sense! But in this week’s episode, “Lamentis”, we are provided some information that appears to be at odds with the “official” founding myth of the TVA.

As rogue Loki Variant Sylvie describes what it’s like to enchant people’s minds (huh, almost like she’s some kind of…enchantress?) to our lead character, she reveals that sometimes a mind is so strong that she must create a fantasy of a memory to lull them. Such is the case with Hunter C-20 (Sasha Lane).

“I had to pull a memory from hundreds of years prior before she even fought for them,” Sylvie tells Loki.

Huh…before she fought for the TVA? How could C-20 have had a life before the TVA if the TVA created her for time-policing purposes? It turns out that, according to Sylvie, everyone who works at the TVA are just like her and Loki: Variants lost on the Sacred Timeline. 

In classic Marvel Cinematic Universe fashion, this answer to a question leads to only more questions. Let’s endeavor to answer them.

What is the TVA’s Real Mission?

Marvel’s first Disney+ series WandaVision made it clear from the get-go that all wasn’t what it seemed to be. Conversely Loki appeared to end its first episode with all cards on the table. Sure, the science fiction premise was ambitious and at times hard to understand, but the TVA’s mission was outlined quite clearly in that aforementioned orientation video. Now one can’t help but wonder whether Loki isn’t more like WandaVision than we anticipated.

The TVA says its only mission is to protect the Sacred Timeline. As the series goes on, however, the very notion of a Sacred Timeline seems increasingly impossible. As discussed in this feature, which irreparably broke my brain, the lack of alternate universes in the TVA’s worldview is just not feasible. Where do all of these Loki Variants come from if not alternate universes or alternate timelines?

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Sylvie has a fundamentally different appearance from our Loki and, if she is to be believed, an entirely different family history. How could two such contradictory beings exist on one Sacred Timeline? The answer is that they can’t. The TVA claims that the emergence of just one alternate timeline branched off from the Sacred Timeline would have disastrous consequences. Clearly it doesn’t though as all the Variant Lokis already exist.

Perhaps when Miss Minutes and the Time Keepers say that the TVA maintains the Sacred Timeline, what they mean is that they guard it from external threats. Pruning Nexus events here and there is also part of the job, but the main goal is to make sure that the Sacred Timeline doesn’t come under attack from other timelines. If we buy into that logic, then of course the Time Keepers would bring brainwashed Variants aboard to assist in this mission.

Speaking of the Time Keepers…

Are the Time-Keepers Even Real?

Episode three brings us closer to meeting the Time-Keepers than ever before. C-20 tells Sylvie that the Time Keepers reside on the top floor of the TVA offices, accessible only through a golden elevator. Sylvie makes it quite close to invading their sanctum before Loki intervenes.

Now that a basic tenet of the TVA’s history is in question though, so too is the existence of the Time-Keepers themselves. Loki’s understanding of the deities is that they are three “space lizards” who oversee the timestream. While that would certainly be cool to see depicted onscreen, it now seems more likely that they’re a fairy tale.

The TVA’s own internal depiction of the Time-Keepers is too holy and sagacious to possibly be real. As evidenced by the bureaucratic nightmare around them, time keeping is not a sexy business. It requires hard work and determination, not ethereal space iguanas. Recall that the only character who claims to have met with the head honchos is Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). 

Is Miss Minutes the Big Bad Here?

If the Time-Keepers aren’t Loki’s main foe to be vanquished then who is? It’s possible that the answer was in front of us the whole time. Simply put: there’s something off about Miss Minutes. At first glance, she was just a funny satire of the friendly cartoonish faces that corporations use to hide their dirty work. Then episode 2 revealed that Miss Minutes is actually able to achieve something resembling a corporeal form as she quizzes Loki on TVA history from a desk.

This past week, The Hollywood Reporter had a chance to interview Tara Strong, the voice of Miss Minutes, and there were some intriguing tidbits uncovered. When asked about director Kate Herron’s assertion that Miss Minutes was about to go on an “interesting” journey, Strong responded:

“I can cryptically tease that you’ll see her again. There’s much more to be revealed, and it’s fun to watch that unfold. The beautiful thing about this character is you don’t really know who she is, where she’s from, what her origin story is, how sentient she is, if she has a horse in this race at all, and what her intentions are, if any.”

Strong made good on her promise to remain cryptic there, but it’s still surprising to hear just how much Miss Minutes content is yet to come. I suppose that’s to be expected from a character with her own poster and that played by a voice acting titan. It’s not out of the question that Miss Minutes will be revealed to be an antagonist of sorts, perhaps even the main one. 

For better or worse, Miss Minutes represents the TVA. What if the agency started with noble intentions before gradually becoming corrupted over centuries? And now Miss Minutes is the anthropomorphic embodiment of the flawed institution, stamping out timelines that don’t need to be stamped out. Perhaps she’s like HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

After all, does this look like the face of mercy to you?

Does Agent Mobius Know He Had A Life Before the TVA?

The biggest loser in the revelations of episode 3 might be poor Agent Mobius (Owen Wilson). Back in episode 2, Mobius had a conversation with Loki about how much he appreciates order in the universe rather than the chaos that Loki prefers. That same episode reveals, however, that Mobius might not be as straight-laced as he appears.

The man loves jet skis, calling them the perfect combination of form and function. Unlike his co-worker Casey (Eugene Cordero) who doesn’t even know what a fish is, Mobius likes to spend much of his infinite time reading jet ski magazines. We should have known right then and there that the TVA did not create its employees because why would they program in a love for something from the outside world? 

Mobius is probably a Variant conscripted into the TVA’s mission just like everyone else. The question is: does he know that? I’m inclined to think he does not. Though Mobius is a respected Agent in the TVA, he is continually shown to be shockingly far down on the totem pole. Judge Renslayer won’t let him meet the Time Keepers (probably because they don’t exist) and even Hunter B-15 bosses him around in the field. 

Although, there’s another possibility. In the comics, many higher/executive positions in the TVA were held by Mobius. Multiple Mobiuses. The Marvel Comics TVA had a policy of cloning its managers, rather than hiring/training new people, and since Mobius was great at his job, they made more of him. Perhaps the MCU Mobius is based on a Variant, one who did his job so well that they chose to duplicate him for more work. It would mean that he isn’t necessarily lying when he tells Loki the “creation myth” of the TVA agents, it might just be the only truth he knows.

Wilson also brings a sensitivity and world-weariness to the role that suggest deep down, Mobius knows something is missing in his life. On a subconscious level, maybe that’s why he’s so taken with Loki. The only being that can take down the Time Keepers and TVA’s strict order is the God of Mischief. 

The post Marvel’s Loki Episode 3 Raises Some Questions About the TVA appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[eliteprepsat]

What makes for a strong argument? The SAT essay assignment—to explain how an author “builds an argument to persuade” his or her audience—asks you to locate and analyze the building blocks of an argumentative essay.

Just what makes an argument persuasive, though, can seem unclear, especially if students have a limited concept of what it means to make a “strong” argument, too often taken as a synonym for a merely assertive or loud argument.

As a case in point, consider one of the “strongest” rhetorical excerpts in U.S. history.

“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?” asked Frederick Douglass on July 5, 1852, less than nine years before the beginning of the American Civil War. “I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.” Douglass continues by calling Americans’ “shouts of liberty and equality” nothing more than “a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.”

Douglass’s speech remains one of the most famous in U.S. history—and one of the most explosive.

Though many high school and college students know of this speech, they are often directed to only its most inflammatory passages, especially the paragraph beginning with Douglass’s famous rhetorical question.

But this paragraph takes up just 210 words in a speech that exceeds 10,000. One of the most important elements that gets lost in the fire of Douglass’s oft-quoted paragraph is the careful rhetorical maneuvering that precedes it.

“The signers of the Declaration of Independence were brave men,” Douglass declares early on in the speech. He continues:

They were great men too — great enough to give fame to a great age. It does not often happen to a nation to raise, at one time, such a number of truly great men. . . . They were statesmen, patriots and heroes, and for the good they did, and the principles they contended for, I will unite with you to honor their memory.

The first third of Douglass’s speech is filled with lines praising the Founding Fathers of the U.S. for their bravery, sacrifice, and love of freedom. Such moments of praise might seem completely contradictory. In fact, if I were to excerpt only the first third of Douglass’s speech, you might think it was written by a flag-waving, Independence-Day loving, U.S. patriot.

So, does Douglass’s praise of the Founding Fathers undermine his claim that U.S. history consists of “gross injustice and cruelty”?

To the contrary, the power of Douglass’s impassioned criticism of the U.S. is almost completely lost without the first third of his speech. That first third is, I think, the most rhetorically essential part of the speech, even though it does not seem to directly feed into his central argument.

What does it do instead? It concedes, in nearly 3,000 words, that the people of the U.S. have good reason to take pride in their country, that the signers of the Declaration of Independence were “men of honesty,” “spirit,” and “rare virtue,” who set “a glorious example” for future generations.

What’s the point of this concession? Though Douglass’s concession is exceptional for its length and detail, it sheds insight on what concessions do in general.

Concessions establish common ground with skeptics and demonstrate that the speaker not only has imagined possible objections but has come to understand the reasoning behind those objections. Concessions establish their speakers as reasonable, thoughtful, and educated, as individuals invested in understanding multiple perspectives rather than narrowly arguing their own. To this end, they establish their authors’ credibility as truth-seekers.

Of course, Douglass doesn’t rest at the end of his long concession. He goes on to articulate an impassioned rebuttal. For Douglass, a former slave, the celebrations of U.S. liberty remain compromised by American slavery, an institution that consists of “the mournful wail of millions.”

On the way to arguing that “[t]he existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism as a sham, your humanity as a base pretense, and your Christianity as a lie,” Douglass employs a set of related rhetorical strategies.

First, he anticipates a counterargument—namely, that Douglass and his fellow abolitionists are too critical of their country:

But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more, and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed.

Here, Douglass introduces a counterargument in order to anticipate possible objections to his speech (in this case, that abolitionists “fail to make a favorable impression” by being so harsh with their rhetoric). One of the great orators in U.S. history, Douglass knew that convincing skeptics meant taking on their objections rather than ignoring them.

Writers often introduce a counterargument before conceding that said argument has some validity. But not here. Douglass goes right from a counterargument to a rebuttal: “But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue?” In other words, there is no point in arguing over the validity of slavery, an institution that cannot be reasonably defended.

One might assume that all this maneuvering between counterarguments, concessions, and rebuttals dilutes Douglass’s argument, but just the opposite is true. Douglass uses these strategies to sharpen his devastating criticism of the U.S. His use of counterarguments, concessions, and rebuttals not only presents him as reasonable and enlightened but also helps focus his most pointed and powerful criticisms.

Counterarguments introduce other points of view. Concessions admit those perspectives have some merit. And rebuttals demonstrate how one’s argument holds up despite valid objections. These are three rhetorical cornerstones you should be able to identify and analyze for the SAT essay.

They’re also key tools for those interested in sounding both reasonable and confident in their own ideas. If used expertly, they might just help you transform how we think about freedom or justice—or at least help you win an argument with your parents.

Stephen P. is a writer and teacher based in Los Angeles. He has taught literature and writing courses at several universities and has taught writing and reading at Elite Prep Los Angeles since 2010.

[seducing-mr-perfect]

We last left off at the bar scene, where an angry Min-june left the hotel bar post an argument with Robin, and her subsequent conversation with her father. Shortly after, she has a nightmare involving all the men in her life – including the one she’d met just a few days ago. And somehow, it’s that very man that consumes her thoughts for the rest of the film.

The nightmare sequence is important for obvious reasons. We already know that Ju-hyeoung is a selfish lying coward who doesn’t care for Min-june at all, that he treats her with utter disrespect then blames her for his own choices. But what we don’t know, until this sequence, is that this has become a pattern with Min-june.

The first boyfriend mocks her for being ‘nice’. The second one takes issue with her need to look after and care for him. Ju-hyeoung blames her for his cheating tendencies. The men she dates don’t see a warm, loving, genuine woman with a maternal streak - they see a girlfriend they can use and discard as they see fit. And Min-june, in attempting to be the perfect girlfriend for them and ignoring her own needs, ends up digging her own grave.

Interestingly, in her dream, Min-june focuses on the last part of Robin’s rather extensive sentence. You will be treated like trash by men, and then you’ll grow old alone. Given that this part of his dialogue sticks out more strongly than the qualifiers he used just before (“if you continue on [acting the way you do in relationships]…”), it’s possible to assume that she feels this is his overall opinion of her, and that it will never change.

I feel this impression she has - of what Robin thinks - is what becomes a major block to her recognizing how real, or deep, his feelings for her run, later on. Because she doesn’t have a context for why he speaks to her this way at the bar, the only assumption she is able to make is that Robin thinks she is a pathetic, clingy person who deserves to be treated like trash in general.

But none of this is what this analysis is really about. This analysis is about Robin’s challenge to June, and how she tackles it.

Why does Min-June take this challenge so seriously in the first place? For this we need to look at one statement that June made, the one Robin so bluntly interrupted with his challenge:

I could have a line of guys begging for me. I could, but I don’t. You know why?

The real answer to 'why’, June addresses in her exchange with Robin much later in the film (at the bench scene, where she confides in him how uncomfortable she is with resorting to manipulation and power-play in her relationships). June doesn’t want men to beg for her, even though she knows she’s completely capable of having them do so. She just wants to be able to show how she feels without having it being constantly used against her.

She takes this challenge because it’s important for her to establish that she can. That she isn’t some naive ingénue who knows nothing about relationships or people or desirability. She isn’t trash. She isn’t someone who deserves to be alone for the rest of her life. And she needs to prove to herself, as much as to Robin, that she is more than capable of playing the man at his own game if she really sets her mind to it.

The only problem is that the man she's trying so hard to 'seduce', is just as determined not to fall for it. Or at least knows how to let it not show.

Operation Beautiful

The next time we see Min-june at her workplace, she’s in a flattering floral dress and pearls. A look - in contrast to her usual professional and office-wear (the pantsuits, the smart dresses, the shirt-skirt-quarter-pants combinations) - that is meant to emphasize her femininity and play it to her advantage. She speaks of using her beauty as a weapon “that will make the enemy’s heart pound”.

But here is also where she makes a massive miscalculation. Robin is too tough a customer to snatch that way. He already has several walls erected, walls that June can’t even see yet.

Did he anticipate that June would seriously take him up on his words at the bar? The movie doesn’t exactly tell us either way.

Does he, however, know what she’s trying to do? Highly likely, given his reactions both here and the scene in his hotel room.

Robin could have ignored June entirely, or not mentioned her dress at all. But he doesn’t. He chooses not only to comment on her attire in front of her colleagues, but also to cast it in an undesirable light. Almost as if he is accepting her challenge and then turning it on its head, sending a clear message that she’ll need to try harder, strategize better, if she is to actually stand a chance at besting him.

So it’s highly possible that this is his way of pulling the rug from under her feet, ensuring he still has the upper hand in this battle that’s erupted between them.

Operation Angel

Operation Beautiful works as a short - but slightly insignificant - comedy scene. This sequence works as that, as well as foreshadowing to a very important plot point (Robin’s grandfather’s connection to Maeda). Here she attempts to conform to another trope of traditional femininity: that of “looking after” him through cleaning his office space (she even buys fresh flowers to decorate his table). This includes rifling through these things and throwing away stuff that she thinks is useless and unnecessary. And this is where she makes her second major mistake.

In the film Robin is shown, time and again, as being very possessive of his personal space, and reluctant to share anything about his private life with anyone. Even around his closest friend, Jennifer, he sidesteps any personal questions, deflects and often changes the subject. Twice, he shuts down Min-June’s attempts to step into his personal space (both times involve her seeing his grandfather’s photo).

Here, Min-June not only intrudes on his space but also unwittingly throws out the most valuable item in that office: his grandfather’s Maeda uniform. Yet, this intrusive, impulsive act is what contributes to him ultimately trusting her with one of his biggest secrets towards the end, knowing she will understand how big a deal it is. It would be foolish to miss the importance of this scene, given that when he finally chooses to confide in someone about Maeda, that person happens to be Min-June herself.

Min-June doesn’t know it yet, but she has already wormed her way into the deepest parts of Robin's life and history, and knows him more intimately than most people would.

What’s interesting about these two sequences is also the background music that plays while these two operations are going on: a song by Sweet Sorrow called Tangdanghan Kunyoga Arumdada*, which is a modern Korean jazz-inspired number that describes a confident, beautiful woman that the man is slowly falling for. This seems slightly contradictory to the way Robin thinks of Min-June if you’re seeing the movie for the first time, but makes plenty of sense when you realise that he had actually had feelings for her all along.

A 386 Versus A Pentium

So far Min-June has made two rather unsuccessful attempts at besting Robin at his own game, and her techniques and moves are about to get more and more complicated. She refers to this particular attempt as “psychological warfare”, hoping to find some soft spot in him that she can touch and exploit (he has one already, for her, but she has no clue of it yet).

Interestingly, though her main focus is to get him to sympathise with her, she also doesn’t completely rule out using her physicality to further attract him, by unbuttoning the first two buttons of her blouse. Which makes for a slightly comedic (and also some HUGE FANSERVICE 😂😂😂 for Daniel Henney fans especially) turn which Robin briefly addles her brains by opening his door with no shirt on. But this scene goes beyond just giving us an excuse to see Daniel Henney shirtless. As with “Operation Angel”, it gives both Min-June, and us viewers, a glimpse into Robin’s past - this time through a gunshot wound from his first love.

What I find most fascinating about these two sequences is how both the uniform, the photograph and the gunshot wound are framed within these scenes. They are pictured as seemingly unimportant things that nonetheless are central to understanding where Robin comes from and what matters to him.

Min-June sees these items in passing and doesn’t dwell too much on them, but by the end they are central to her understanding of him. Her intrusive discovery of them is also why Robin trusts her with the most personal, emotional parts of his life, and why Jennifer correctly guesses the two were close enough for Min-June to have seen his scar.

Once Min-June has made herself comfortable in Robin’s hotel room (perhaps too comfortable: she is caught snooping on Robin’s photograph of his grandfather), she attempts to - in her own words - “request his counsel on difficult matters and bring out his soft side”. She begins by dramatically stating outside his door that she feels like dying, and then plays on his ego by deferring to him and claiming that she has realized how right he is, and then establishing some level of proximity by asking him to teach her his ways. This is a move that backfires on her. As with the “Operation Beautiful” exercise, Robin seems prepared and is ready to have the upper hand over this conversation.

He does so by insinuating that Min-June’s thought process is outdated and unable to deal with change - comparing her with a model such as the Intel 386 (Is he the Pentium, then? Is she meant to upgrade into…him?) and stating that making changes now could cause her brain to “stop functioning from a fatal error”.

What does Robin mean when he says this? After all, this is the same woman he singled out for a project he was personally invested in, and not just because he was physically attracted to her. This is the woman he labelled as having “a particular talent for deception”, who had singlehandedly made their first step towards sealing the Maeda deal possible through her attempts at duplicity.

Interestingly, again, Min-June feels Robin’s comment is aimed at her as a person, in totality, rather than an aspect of her life. And why wouldn’t she? Robin never really makes the distinctions clear enough.

Does he really mean this to refer to June as a person? Or is he just referring to the way she handles relationships?

Funnily enough, when Robin has to give Min-June an analogy to drive home his point about relationships, he speaks in purely business terms (when a piece of stock has no future, you have to know when to cut your losses and sell. Relationships are the same…) assuming she will understand perfectly. Yet, when Min-June sasses him out on the ridiculousness of his statement, she does it by indicating that this is what he must think of her at the workplace as well.

How does Robin respond to this? By offering her a chance to prove her mettle professionally. He pits her against her co-worker and friend, Brian, for a very important deal. If she succeeds in beating Brian and bagging that deal, he will give her lessons.

–

I’ve often wondered about the international title given to this movie**. Seducing Mr Perfect. Who is the Mr Perfect here? What seducing actually takes place?

But the more I think about it, the more I feel the title is really an ironic take on the story itself. Min-June tries - and fails - in her actual attempts at seduction, unaware that Robin has, in a way, already been 'seduced’ by her. And Robin appears sorted and 'perfect’, only to be revealed as immensely flawed, a mass of contradictions, an emotional mess of a man - someone so guarded, and with so many walls, that he almost loses out on what’s most important to him in the process of erecting them.

–

* At some point, I will be posting rough translations of lyrics of the 4 songs in this movie, followed by a write-up on the song, how it fits in with the movie and the characters, and the sequences they feature in. I do think any analysis of this movie would be incomplete without an exploration of its excellent jazz-based music.

** The films original title - Misuteo Robin Kkosigi - directly translates to “Flirting with Mr Robin”, which sounds great in Korean…not so much in English.

–

[aiimaginesbts]

The Price to Rise: Part 1 [Jimin | Prince Eric]

Word count: 6,362 words

Pairing: Jimin x Reader

Genre: Disney AU, fluff, angst

Moodboard

Prologue | Jimin | Jungkook | Seokjin | Yoongi | Taehyung | Hoseok | Namjoon | Jimin (The choice: Part 2) | Epilogue

POLL (ended 22nd July)

Links for alternate endings are at the end of the post!

Disclaimer/Copyright

It only takes a blink of your eyes.

Just one second, and you are here. Although to be honest, you're not sure where here is. It looks nothing like the office building you were standing in just a few seconds ago. All you know is that you're sitting at a long dining table all by yourself, and your head is feeling heavy. Not quite a headache, but enough to make you feel a little lightheaded. Thankfully, the feeling soon disappears.

However, before you can regain your bearings, a melodious, female voice calls your name. Your head swivels around to the right to see a beautiful woman with dark brown hair peeking over a corner into the spacious room.

"What are you still doing here? Jason is waiting for you."

Rolling your eyes, you answer, "I'm coming, Adella."

You have no idea how you know her name, or why you rolled your eyes. It's like an involuntary reaction. The internal panic within you intensifies when Adella comes out of her corner, revealing herself from the top of her hair to the tips of her toes. Which is what you would have said normally, except she has no toes. Adella's top half is all gorgeous – if narrow-eyed from irritation – woman, but from the waist down, she is a fish, covered in shiny, murky yellow scales.

Before you can freak out, you look down to see that the only difference between you and Adella is that your own tail is green in colour. A tut-tut comes from her direction and forces you out of your shocked musings. Pushing yourself out of the chair, you follow her out of the dining room, still absorbed in the sudden revelation. With the realisation that you're a mermaid comes the fact that you're underwater, yet you're breathing with no difficulty. Swimming along the hallways feels as natural as breathing, although you're sure that the way you're breathing now is anything but normal.

Your sister enters one of the doorways but you keep on going; somehow you know that this Jason is waiting at the entrance of the palace, and Adella is heading to her bedroom. Gliding towards your direction in a trance, you slowly piece the situation together. This has to be the work of the man you met earlier; the one who claims to be your fairy godmother and promises you romantic adventures. Part of you thought it was a joke, but there are only three possibilities that can explain why you're in this state: you're either dreaming, or he was actually telling you the truth, or you've gone crazy. You have no recollection of going to sleep and the prospect of losing your marbles isn't exactly thrilling, so you're inclined to believe that some magic is at work.

Apparently this magic has turned you into a mythical creature, complete with a new identity and memories to go with it. You suppose that you should be thankful that you get to keep your name, at least. Then you wonder if your new sea-dwelling family and friends' memories have been altered to integrate you into their lives. If you are now inhabiting someone else's body, and if so, where has the owner gone. If this is going to be permanent. The man who landed you in this predicament is nowhere to be seen though, so you have no one to ask. Plus, he did promise you romantic adventures, so you decide to go with the flow.

A feeling of resignation mixed with frustration fills you when you exit the palace and spot a young merman waiting just outside. He is persistent, having begged you to give him a chance even after being turned down in the past as your new recollections tell you. Considering that he is a good guy, and someone your father, the King approves of, you have reluctantly decided to give him the opportunity to change your mind.

As you let him steer you around the city, you experience first hand the reason you're not enamoured with Jason, good-looking and nice as he is. There's just no spark between you and him, his conversation bores you and most of the date is very awkward. If someone had asked you before you're thrown into this life what you would do if you're experiencing an adventure surrounded by merpeople in a city underwater, you would have answered that you'd explore and enjoy the journey. Now, equipped with the identity of the mermaid you're embodying, you find that this life is something that you're tired of. The activities in the marketplace, the colourful fishes swimming all around you, the architectural structures that make up the city don't impress you. You long for something else.

The funny thing is, now that you're submerged deep inside the sea, all you want is to return to land. It isn't something that your mermaid body has ever experienced, which may be the reason the idea attracts and excites you so much. You don't see any sense in waiting, so right after the tedious date is over, instead of entering the palace where Jason has left you, you wait until he's out of sight before making a beeline for the surface.

As you rise higher and higher, you realise that it's nighttime. Even through the darkness of the night, you can make out a large shadow looming into the water, silhouetted by bursts of bright lights that sparkle and fade, then explode again. Breaking the surface of the water amplifies your hearing and sight of the happenings that are going on above the water. You realise that the glittering lights are actually fireworks being launched into the sky from a massive ship. Sounds of cheering and merry celebration drift from the vessel into your ears. Out of curiosity you swim towards the ship and haul yourself aboard, taking care to stay in the shadows so you won't be seen. You're dying to know what's going on but you're strangely wary of these humans as you have no idea how they will react if they see you.

From your dark corner you can see a crowd made of mostly men laughing with their tall, thin glasses raised in the air. The reason for their celebration becomes apparent to you when they break into a Happy Birthday song. No wonder the occasion is marked so extravagantly; the people on the ship are commemorating the Prince's birthday. You lean forwards from your perch, straining to see the subject of the celebration among the men and women. Then the crowd disperses, and your heart stops beating.

Standing in the middle of the throng is the most beautiful man you have ever seen. His midnight black hair is a stark contrast against his fair skin, his face adorning charming eyes that are squeezed into crescents from his smile. The smile that pulls your attention to his plump lips, breathtaking in itself yet contradictory from the sin that is his body. His white shirt is unbuttoned just enough to give a tantalising view of the top of his hard chest, and tucked into black pants that fits snugly around his thick thighs, ending with polished black shoes. There is no denying that you're instantly attracted to him, yet it's something else that causes your soul to call to him. It's not just a physical attribute, but something deeper, yet you can't quite put a finger on it.

Your musings are interrupted by an older man who is leaning against the railing as he addresses the subject of your infatuation. "I wish you'd invited the princess along."

"Really? I was glad to see her leave," the young man chuckles, but you notice that his eyes have lost some of their warmth. "I'd rather celebrate my birthday with the people that I actually enjoy having around."

His response causes the other man to sigh. "Everyone is anticipating you to take a bride, Prince Jimin."

So this is the prince. Prince Jimin, you mutter softly to yourself, testing his name on your tongue. You like it. The name suits him, and knowing it makes you feel a little closer to him.

"I'm not going to marry someone just because everyone is expecting me to do so," Jimin says. There's no mistaking the annoyance that fills his voice now. "I'm waiting for the right girl." Before his companion can interject, he continues, "When I find her, I'll know. And I don't care how long it takes for me to find her." His tired note of finality tells you that this is not the first time the topic has been discussed. You agree with his sentiments wholeheartedly. You've always thought that if you settle down, it will be with someone you love. Of course, given that you hardly go out to meet anyone new due to your dedication to your job, the chances of finding that someone is close to nil.

Suddenly, your elation dissolves into panic when loud barks accompany the entrance of a large sheepdog. The dog prances around, much to some of the guests' chagrin before bouncing on Jimin, who laughs and gets on his knees to give the dog a rub. The scene floods you with even more affection for him, your concern forgotten until the dog sniffs the air in curiosity. You shrink further into the shadows as the creature bounds towards you, ignoring Jimin's calls from behind him. Before he can follow your scent to your hiding place, you turn and jump back into the water, hoping that no one will take it upon themselves to investigate the sound of the resulting splash.

A series of loud barks follows your exit, but before anyone can pay much attention to it, it's cut off by the sound of ominous thunder in the distance. The moment you hit the water, you can feel the change in pressure and temperature of the current, but the humans on board are only warned by the loud shout of one of the sailors; "Hurricane a'comin'!" Fear strikes your heart, not for yourself but out of concern for the people on the ship, especially the prince. The next rumble of thunder is much closer to you, and none of them gets much time to prepare before the storm hits.

Violent waves lap against you, attempting to push you away but you are determined to remain near the vessel in case something happens. It's hard to tell what's going on when the only sense left to you is your hearing, and you strain to hear for any clues as to everything that is happening. The sudden lightning that strikes the boat is akin to a sword plunging through your chest. Your eyes widen as angry red flames erupt, shifting the activity from the ship to the ocean.

A strong, authoritative voice yells out orders amidst panicked shouts, and several smaller lifeboats hit the water, holding passengers while the fire continues to engulf the enormous ship. The hurricane is generating brutal waves, causing the boundary between the water and the air to become nebulous, obstructing your sight, but you swim around the smaller lifeboats, all thoughts of keeping yourself hidden forgotten as you try to determine if Jimin is among them.

Dread courses through you when you realise that the person giving orders to evacuate is none other than Jimin himself, as his commanding voice is still heard on the burning transportation. He has managed to get his people to safety, but is searching for the dog. A pitiful whine tears at your insides. The poor thing must be terrified, and you wish you can do something, anything, but you are powerless. The chaos escalate when an explosion blasts through the ship, hurling Jimin and the dog into the raging sea.

Immediately you spring into action, ignoring the ringing in your ears that resulted from the eruption, drowning the gasps and screams of the people safe on the lifeboats. Once again you are reminded of the being you have turned into when you dive into the water and find that your vision is better submerged in its depth than it is in the air. Through the wreckage sinking into the darkness, you can see the hind legs of Max the dog being hauled into one of the lifeboats, but Jimin has been flung away farther than his pet.

It's too dark for the humans to find the prince through the pandemonium, but you can clearly see him descending deeper and deeper into the sea. You propel yourself towards him, looping your arms under his shoulders so you can pull him upwards. Hoping that he's still breathing, you decide against returning him to the other guests; opting to bring him towards the shore instead. Quietly you thank your lucky stars that you're now a mermaid, because there is no way you could have managed to pull this mass of muscles to the beach if you're in your old body.

By the time you drag Jimin's prone form onto the damp sand, you're completely exhausted. Your lungs are crying for oxygen and your muscles are aching from exertion, but you put your needs aside, concentrating on him. Once you've confirmed that he's still breathing, you pull yourself back, leaning on your right forearm as you admire the man before you. Dawn is encroaching upon you, the rising sun illuminating his beauty. He looks even more handsome up close. As you tenderly brush a lock of wet hair away from his face, laughter threatens to escape your mouth.

For you have finally managed to put two and two together. You really are in some unbelievable version of The Little Mermaid, and it seems that you are the titular character. Even though you love watching Disney movies and are now in the little mermaid's body, you cannot remember the exact words she sang in the movie, and you like to think that it's out of your own volition that you let the words fall from your lips in a sweet melody.

"Thrown into this world, I was lost and confused,

Resigned to play out the adventure planned for me,

But when I laid eyes on you, I realise I've been obtuse,

To this opportunity to escape from the only life I've known to be,

How can it compare? How can I bear?

The thought of living without you there,

As I look at you, as I sing this song,

I know this is where I belong."

You're unsure if it's your singing or the voices accompanied by excited barks approaching you that causes Jimin to stir, but you know that you can't risk staying with him. With great regret you turn your back to him and make your way towards a cluster of rocks to hide behind so you can observe the scene unfolding in front of you. You manage to conceal yourself just in time before a small group of people, led by the man talking to Jimin last night turn around the corner, following an enthusiastic Max. Apparently they've been using the dog in the hopes of finding his owner, a tactic that has proven to be successful.

Despite being obviously dazed and unsteady as he's helped onto his feet, Jimin's eyes are searching the blue expanse of the sea, telling you that he had heard, possibly even seen you. The thought makes you excited and nervous at the same time. As you watch him being led away from the shore, your resolve hardens. You know what you must do. The next step you have to take.

Without hesitation, you plunge yourself back inside the water, made murky from the storm. The temperature gradually dips as you swim towards the ocean floor, so intent on getting to your destination that you're surprised when Adella suddenly appears in front of you, halting your movement.

"Where have you been?" She demands.

You ignore her question. "I have to go to see Father."

"You're not going to ask him to let you walk among the humans, are you?" She presses, dropping all pretense. "I know what you did last night."

Her correct assumption gives you pause, but you find yourself without words. Luckily, she addresses your fears without you having to voice them out.

"You know Father will never allow you to interact with them," she continues. "He won't allow contact with humans. You know that."

"I have to try," you say, trying to convince her and yourself as you pass her.

"You'll only make him mad," she warns. "Why don't you ask the Sea Witch instead?"

Again, her words make you stop and reconsider. You know deep inside that there is no way that the king will accede to your wish to become a human. He will probably say that you're too young to understand, but your feelings have nothing to do with age. There is no mistaking the connection that you feel between you and Jimin. Despite being born here, you don't belong in the ocean but on land. Meeting Jimin only solidifies your belief in that fact. However, you do not wish to get into a row with your father, especially when you know that it will not end in your favour.

Satisfied that she has made her point, Adella leaves you to sit and ponder your options. If you're really in the Little Mermaid's world, meeting the Sea Witch will result in nothing short of disastrous for you, but it's becoming apparent that you have no other choice. Moreover, although you may be in her body, you are not the little mermaid. Ultimately you are still yourself. You're still free to make your own decisions, and perhaps you can change the course of the story. With your mind decided, you turn around and head towards a different location.

You fancy yourself an adventurer, yet the outskirts of Atlantica is not somewhere you venture into often. In fact, you've never gotten this close to the Sea Witch's lair before. The atmosphere of this place seems different; foreboding. Even the water feels significantly colder the further away you get from the center of the city. It does not deter you in the slightest, even when you see her home, which has to be the remains of a giant sea creature. You gulp at the sight and the thought of what you're about to do, but the moment of weakness goes by unheard by anyone but you.

Part of you expect to find polyps to litter the floor of the Witch's home, but thankfully the place remains empty of growth. The long hallway opens to a cavernous room, dark and mysterious, the ends of the space not visible to you, making you wary of unsavoury beings lurking in the shadows. Then someone does make an appearance, nearly making you jump out of your skin, but she doesn't look scary at all. Far from it, actually. The Sea Witch is nothing like you imagine her to be. Her long, platinum white hair swirls about her fair face, lending her a delicate aura, and her slim body ends in a graceful tail that matches the blue hue of her eyes.

You find yourself mesmerised by her beauty until she clears her throat. "What brings you here, my dear?" Her voice does not quite match her appearance; it's raspy and breathy, giving you the impression that she has not had the chance to use it for a very long time.

"I... I..." At first you feel foolish, but you push past your embarrassment to explain to her your predicament, ending with your wish to become human so you can find your prince.

"Can you do that?" You ask tentatively after you've finished.

"Easily," she replies with a dismissive wave of her hand. "You have to pay for it though. I don't grant favours for nothing, you know." Her lips curl into a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes at that statement.

You nod your understanding. You suspect as much, and you're willing to pay the price to rise out of the ocean onto the land above. Jimin's land. That is your driving force, but it doesn't make this any easier.

"I can make you a potion that will turn you from a mermaid into a human for three days. Before the sun sets on the third day, this prince has to give you a kiss. A true love's kiss. If he does, you'll remain a human forever," she explains. "All I ask in return is your voice."

"Just three days?" Even though you've expected this, you still wish that she can cut you a better deal. "What happens if he doesn't kiss me within that time?"

"You'll just dissolve into sea foam," she answers almost cheerfully. "The payment is more than fair," she reasons. "Unless you can get what you want without me, in which case, be my guest," she gestures you to the door, a clear sign that you can take it or leave it. Now that it's time to make a decision, you find yourself having an internal battle of wills.

You're painfully aware that your voice is not the only thing you're potentially giving up. If Jimin doesn't kiss you within these three days, you will lose your life. It's not a pleasant thought, and not one that you would ever have considered before now.

Do you really want to put your life on the line for a guy you've just met, and never even talked to? The little voice in your head argues.

I've never felt that way about anyone before, you counter to yourself. Maybe this whole thing has driven me crazy, but this must be how true love feels like.

But are you willing to die?

What do I have to lose? Family and friends I've just met today? A life in the sea that suffocates me? My life back in the real world that is a monotonous nightmare that I've longed to escape from?

These questions make you realise that a chance at happiness is worth the possibility of dying. Seeing Jimin again, even for a few days seems like a more attractive prospect than going back to either your life now or your work-laden existence before this. Finally you agree, signing your name on a parchment produced by the Witch with a flourish. She gets to work immediately, pouring liquids from vials and minuscule creatures into a cauldron that hisses and smokes at random intervals. You watch her work in awed silence, remaining on your spot in the middle of the room until she produces a small bottle containing silver-coloured liquid.

"Now, the payment," she says, picking out a brown and white conch shell out of nowhere. You resist the urge to back away when she approaches you, forcing yourself to stay still as her long, spindly fingers gently massage your neck, coaxing your voice out of your throat. She releases it out of your open mouth, a wisp of golden smoke that drifts into the seashell, causing it to glow for a few moments before returning to its mute, unimpressive shades.

Taking the bottle that the Witch offers you, you convey your gratitude with a nod before racing towards the surface. In your hurry, you miss the figure hiding in the corner of the room, watching the entire deal being made with intense interest. As soon as you exit the chamber, she makes her way towards the Witch.

"So if the prince doesn't kiss her within three days, she dies?" Adella's shriek of worry would have touched you if she is not in cohorts with the Witch in the first place.

The Witch avoids her gaze, busying herself with putting all her potion-making ingredients away. "Don't worry. We mermaids turn into foam when we die, so what's the difference really? Either way, you'll get what you want, won't you?"

It's hardly reassuring, but there is nothing Adella can do to rectify the situation, so she too departs, leaving the Witch to muse the situation by her lonesome.

"It's never a bad idea to have one or two members of the royal family under your thumb," she cackles to herself.

You're blissfully unaware of the intentions of the two mermaids you have just left in the depths of the sea, only one thing in your mind as you break the surface of the water just shy of the seashore. The sun is blazing almost directly above your head, causing the potion in your hand to glitter like tiny diamonds. Taking a deep breath, you uncork the vial and drink all of the concoction in one gulp.

The mixture may look magical, but its effects feel extremely unpleasant. Torturing, actually. Pain shoots through your tail as it splits into two, turning into legs, but your screams are muted by your lack of voice, which is fortunate. The transformation can't have taken more than a few seconds but the agony it puts you through gives you the impression that you're being tormented for hours. Thankfully once the change is complete, the pain fades away so that when your newly-formed feet hits the shallow sand beneath the water, all you can feel is the coarse grains underneath them.

It's not just the recent transformation that leaves you feeling vulnerable and unprotected, prompting you to wrap your arms around your body, but the fact that you're now completely naked. You lower yourself into the water to hide your exposed body, your eyes scanning the beach for something, anything to cover yourself with. The only option available to you is a bundle of sails bunched up against the beach, washed ashore by the waves.

You rush out of the water to wrap the fabric around you and not a second too soon, for just as you cover yourself, a volley of deep yaps greets you just before Max appears from the side of the cliff and knocks you off your feet. The sail is large enough that the tussle between you and the dog doesn't expose your nude form, which is a blessing because his yelps are soon followed by a rush of apologies. Tilting your head sideways to get away from Max's lapping tongue, you lay your eyes upon the person you've been dying to meet – Prince Jimin.

His own eyes narrow as he tries to place your face. "You look familiar. Have we met?"

Nodding eagerly, you push Max off of you with Jimin's help, opening your mouth to explain yourself. The full force of the price you have paid hits home when not a syllable comes out, no matter how much strain you put on your throat. Heart sinking into your stomach but unwilling to give up, you quickly locate a stick so you can write your story down. Jimin's face falls when he realises you can't speak, but he indulgently follows your every move, full of anticipation. However, when the end of the stick touches the sand, you pause.

Alarm bells ring in your head when you realise that you don't know how to write. Unbeknownst to you, with the form and capabilities that you have inherited from your new body, you have also gotten her illiteracy. You look up at Jimin's confused face, dismay etched on your own as your plan crashes before you can even act on it. As he cannot understand your plight without an explanation, his only source of information is your expressions. Luckily, he takes pity on your obvious distress.

"You must have gone through something horrible," he concludes. "Come on, let's get you back to the castle."

Although your scheme has been cut short, you can't help but let yourself lean against his side as he leads you up the narrow staircase from the beach into the castle's keep. The castle rests on the edge of a cliff that cuts off sharply into the open sea below. Normally you would look around the building with a lot more interest than you're showing now, but Jimin's warmth radiating directly by your side keeps your attention focused solely on him. Every moment that passes sets your belief even more firmly that he is meant for you. There's an innate bond connecting you and him, a link that is ineffable, too complicated to describe with words. You make your way through the castle in silence, and from the intense way he's looking at you it's obvious that he feels it, too.

Jimin is reluctant to let you go to the maids, but he's forced to do so as it would be inappropriate for him to do their job. After Jimin leaves, they set about their work to help you get out of your makeshift clothing, bathe and dress you in proper clothes. Their whispers and gossip regarding your sudden appearance do not go by unnoticed by you, but you ignore them. Their words do have some truth in them, after all. You are not a princess in your real life, and even though you're the daughter of the sea king now, who would believe you, even if you can explain it?

So you spend most of the time letting your mind wander where it wants to, and of course it goes to the only person you can think about since you've been here – Jimin. The thoughts of him and worrying about the next few days keep you occupied until you're done, by which time the sun is already setting. A maid directs you to join Jimin and the older man you've seen in his company before, and you learn that his name is Grimsby.

There are only the three of you at a long table meant to hold more guests, and the two men have decided to utilise only one end of the table, with Jimin sitting at the head and Grimsby on his right. Jimin gestures for you to take a seat on his left with a sweet smile, and you oblige with a grin of your own. Although the looks that Grimsby is shooting you are far from hostile, awkward silence fills the air as the three of you stare at one another. You're not saying anything because of obvious reasons, but it seems they are at a loss as to what to say as well.

Then the absurdity of the situation dawns on you, and amusement wells up inside. Figuring you have nothing to lose, you allow the mirth to bubble over the surface, resulting in a mute giggle. Even though you cover your mouth, your chortles are obvious and it causes Jimin and Grimsby to burst into laughter themselves, breaking the tension.

"Where do you hail from, dear?" Grimsby asks, wiping a tear of mirth from the corner of his eye.

Your laughter dies upon hearing the question. Where do you even begin? Essentially you are a visitor from a completely different world, in a different time. Perhaps you should introduce yourself with your current identity as a mermaid, which is laughable in itself, since humans have no idea of their existence. It doesn't matter either way, because you can't voice out anything. Maybe I can try mining it?

Before you can attempt to mime your answer and possibly make a fool of yourself, Jimin comes to your rescue. "Are you from around here?"

You shake your head, grateful to him for giving you a way out. Grimsby suggests that Jimin take you out to show you the town, and Jimin perks up at the idea. "It sounds like fun. Don't you agree?"

Your enthusiastic nod is all that is needed for Jimin to decide that he will bring you with him the very next day. The conversation picks up naturally after that. Jimin effortlessly makes you feel included in the conversation, despite your inability to contribute to it, and tactfully asks you yes or no questions that you can easily answer, and Grimsby follows suit. Weirdly enough, you feel welcome, not out of place at all, and you thoroughly enjoy yourself as the chat goes on for hours. The food has come and gone, and it's already time for bed when Jimin calls it a night.

To your delight, Jimin walks you all the way to your room. He sometimes breaks the silence to comment on paintings that hang on the walls or the random vase and trinkets, but most of the time both of you remain quiet. Neither of you feel uncomfortable or unnerved by the lack of words though; Jimin's presence calms you like a person you've known forever. It's only upon reaching your door that you start getting nervous, wondering if you should chance kissing him, or if such a move is too soon.

Just as Jimin is about to turn away, you reach out for his hand, but ultimately your nerve fails you and you start to pull away. You're sure that he doesn't see your movement, yet out of his own volition, he whirls back to face you, grabbing your outstretched hand. Before you can register what has just happened, Jimin kisses your cheek quickly, as if trying to overcome his own anxiety so he can pull it off.

"Good night," he wishes you in the softest of whispers before pulling away, his cheeks pink with embarrassment. You're not much better off yourself. You can't remember when was the last time such a chaste peck on the cheek has left you blushing to the roots of your hair and so excited you can hardly wait to enter your room so you can jump in happiness. His wish comes true; as your dreams are filled with happy endings with him.

After breakfast the next day, Jimin spends the morning giving you a tour of the castle. Compared to your merman father's sprawling palace in Atlantica, it is quite cramped. Other than the staircase that leads to the castle keep that Jimin and you entered through the day before, another one opens to a dock on the eastern side of the castle. Even with your limited knowledge, you can appreciate the design that makes it difficult for the castle to be breached. Near the dock is a hall, where Jimin says most of the public activities are held. He then shows you an area north of the hall, impressing you with lines of cherry trees that decorate the walkway. It may be your second favourite part of the castle, the first being Jimin's private garden that he made for himself. He invites you to sit at the gazebo so you can admire the garden while he talks about the work he has put into it. You're touched by the fact that he's sharing something so personal with you, a space that is only used by himself and Max. The other parts of the castle are not as impressive, but you cherish the look on Jimin's face as he happily shows you around every part of his home.

After the bizarre date in the underwater city, the town Jimin takes you to in the afternoon isn't impressive by any means, but it's still peaceful and lovely. Most of all, you enjoy being by his side, a date you'd never dream of having in your drab, work-oriented previous life. Your voice is a small price to pay for the joy that comes with Jimin but it saddens you that he doesn't even know your name. As if he read your mind, he comments with a sigh, "I wish I knew your name. I don't even know what to call you."

In a stroke of brilliance, you clap your hands in excitement as an idea strikes you, capturing Jimin's attention. You look around the town square, then points at an object that shares the same first syllable of your name. It takes some time for Jimin to figure out what you're up to and for you to find suitable items around you to use, finally ending with him persuading you to sit as the two of you play this impromptu game, but in the end he manages to learn your name.

"Y/n," he confirms. "I love your name."

You beam, metaphorical flowers blooming inside every time your name rolls off Jimin's tongue in his sweet, melodious voice. He repeats your name several times just so he can see your smile grow wider and wider until you both dissolve into laughter and he leads you through his castle to get to his private shoreline.

Jimin laces his fingers with yours as you stroll along the beach, his face reddening as he does so, but when you squeeze his palm in encouragement, he slowly relaxes and keeps his hold on you. The breeze pulls your hair out of the style one of the maids has tugged it into this morning but you don't mind, especially when Jimin wordlessly uses his other hand to tuck a stray strand of hair behind your ear. He sits you down on the sand next to him facing the open sea, so the wind blows gently against your face and gives you the courage to rest your head against his shoulder. His thumb rubs against your hand idly as you enjoy each other's company.

Nothing has ever felt so right, so natural, as being with Jimin. Nothing has to be done, no words have to be said, just his presence gives you a sense of completion. Suddenly he breaks the silence by murmuring your name. You lift your head up to look at him already staring at you with his dreamy eyes, but he doesn't say anything. Instead he leans closer, his grip on your hand getting tighter as his full lips hover mere millimetres away from yours, and you let your eyes close. The sounds of the waves lapping the shore are drowned by the beat of your heart thumping loudly in your ears as you await his kiss, but it never comes.

Confused and disappointed, you open your eyes. Once again you feel as if you've hurtled into another dimension. Jimin is no longer in front of you. In fact, you're quite alone.

Where am I?

The poll has ended! Thank you for choosing Jimin as the reader’s choice!

Prologue | Jimin | Jungkook | Seokjin | Yoongi | Taehyung | Hoseok | Namjoon | Jimin (The choice: Part 2) | Epilogue

Alternate Endings: Jungkook | Seokjin | Yoongi | Taehyung | Hoseok | Namjoon

[in-my-minds-reflection]

Literature & Reading// Fiction and American Lit

Going into EWU I had little to know knowledge of what a literary analysis actually was, nor did I have any idea how to do it without plain summary. However, through Ian Green’s Intro to Fiction and American Lit I class I have developed my skills tremendously and I can create theses so much more easily and know how to prove them. These classes have improved my writing so much and with them I know I can apply some of the different techniques he used to teach me into lower level classes, so those students may find success earlier than I did. I have also been able to find a stronger interest in classics in literature and with a teacher who did not encourage just the canon and the white man’s perspective, I can help create an environment in which voices are actually represented in what we read and learn through.

The Language versus the Origin: Identities Exist Long Before Their Labels Do

NOTICE: It is important to note that throughout this paper, as a writer, I can only critique these scholars from a homosexual, cisgender female point of view. As a scholar, one must note that they inherently have biases especially when writing about a group of people they do not identify as and it must be noted as such. Whether one identifies as a woman or a womxn or a they/them or  anything else, it must also be recognized that much of this language has only erupted in the last thirty years or so and we must infer from the descriptions other’s use.

While the ideas of gender roles have existed for hundreds and thousands of years, those not aligning to the binary of these pink and blue stereotypes as we know now have been around for just as long. While the acceptance of these non-traditional ideas is still formulating in big waves, the language that we have to surround these topics has increased exponentially in the last few decades. However, this allows for much disagreement over older texts that deal with gender and sexuality and whether they “were” gay, transgender, or non-binary among other identities, and whether as scholars we can accurately pinpoint the identities without having these explicit messages that “This Character is Trans”. In regard to Mountain Charley, a tale of a person who was born and raised “female” who took upon a male identity in parts of adulthood, and other 19th century American texts, gender is discussed and critiqued in negative ways because to the inability to perfectly define the sexual and gender experience due to the lack of language available during that period. Professor Peter Boag, a history teacher at WSU, has multiple articles about gender in 19th century Western novels. Boag says, “This reveals a problem that confronts historians: it is anachronistic to impose our present-day terms and concepts for and about gender and sexuality — such as transgender — onto the past” ([The Trouble…]325), but if someone were to describe in detail how to make banana bread, but instead called bananas plantains and measure everything in the metric system and titled it “Fancy Loaf”, would it still be incorrect to point out that it is still, literally, banana bread? Though it is notable that the word “transgender” only became commonly used within the last quarter of the 20th century (Boag [The Trouble…]324), the language not being available for use does not excuse that existing not within a gender binary but instead a gender spectrum has happened for all of history. While the west is typically thought of as being settled by white men, the Homestead Act allowed for anyone to purchase 160 acres for only fourteen dollars (Patterson-Black 67). Between five and ten percent of all homesteaders were women (Patterson-Black 68) as the only requirement was to be head of a family or twenty-one years of age. This uncommon knowledge has been holding back the gender ratios as well as power structure that was at work of the nineteenth century that we can distinctly trace back with a paper trail. While female homesteaders were perpetuated as dependent on their husbands, dance hall participants, or prostitutes (Patterson-Black 69), the real women who took on this land ownership were strong and independent workers. If these women were to exist in these generally “masculine” roles, why can’t other people existing on the gender spectrum have also taken advantage of the “wild wild west” and its opportunities?  While we have a large dictionary of words to describe various sexuality and gender labels, the incorrect and offensive terms are still used. Boag says, in his article from only fifteen years ago: “Of course applying our terms and concepts of transgenderism and transsexuality to the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century is problematic. The concept of transsexuality only crystallized in the 1940s and 1950s when advancements in medical technology allowed individuals who felt they had the wrong sex or body to surgically reshape them. Since then, transsexual identity has expanded to include those who choose not to, or are unable to, surgically change their bodies to conform with their gender identity. In the last quarter of the twentieth century a broader concept of transgenderism emerged. The new understanding includes transsexuals, but it also embraces a whole set of people who, perfectly satisfied with their bodies, nevertheless identify with the gender "opposite" of the one society normally assigns to their bodies; it also counts people who truly transcend normative gender categories, wanting to be seen as neither female nor male.” (Boag 479-480) The term “transsexual” is not a term used to describe those who are transgender and most of the population is very uncomfortable of this term; one’s gender experience is not limited to their genitals and whether or not they would like to alter it. While many trans people would like to transition as much as they can medically, not everyone wants to or needs to, and either way they all fall under the broader term of transgender (or trans-masc or trans-feminine). This language used to refer to such a broad group of people is not a positive or useful thing to do, especially when in the twenty first century now that there is easy-to-access language to discuss these things. This idea ties into the transmed community who believe that one must medically transition and desire to to be trans, whereas not everyone who experiences dysphoria that comes with being trans would have their dysphoria solved from being on hormones or getting surgeries, and for some, medically transitioning is just not possible. One’s genitals does not in any way determine their gender, and only may help someone feel comfortable with their body upon altering them. Boag says, “Such a sequence of events undoubtedly helped Greeley reclaim balance in his sense of gender norms and sex roles which had recently been upset by encountering a "woman" dressed as a man in a region where, and at a time when, few women could actually be found. Moreover, the meaning embedded within this story about changing physical locations and gender identities anticipated a theme that decades of later regional historians and popular writers assumed as axiomatic: the West was a man's world, a place either not welcoming to, or simply devoid of, women-creatures best relegated to the more domesticated East” (478) in response to a journalist finding a womxn dressed in traditionally “male” clothing working in the west, which turned out to be not quite as prosperous as he once thought. This section of Boag’s article, “Go West Young Man, Go East Young Woman: Searching for the Trans in Western Gender History”, is exactly contradictory of what Patterson-Black claims in her article in which she is researching women in the great plains. While Boag notes what the writers and historians said during this time, he ignores the researchable statistics and within this ignores all of the women who made their way across America. In researching gender in the nineteenth century, one might come across a book called, “‘The Horrors of the Half Known Life’: Male Attitudes toward Women and Sexuality in Nineteenth Century America” by G.J.Barker-Benfield, a man. This book “covers” (albeit very, very generalized) the ideas a man would have about a woman during the 1800s; from gynecology to multiple chapters about sex, this text, much like the articles by Peter Boag, can not accurately define the life of a woman during this period. This book not only perpetuates the binary gender idea rather than one existing on a spectrum, but also titles its chapters “Man Earn--Woman Spread” and “Architect of the Vagina” whereas not all women “spread” for men nor do all women have vaginas. While the in the intro, Barker-Benfield notes that he is a man and is to be met with criticism for creating this text following a variety of other men creating “feminist” texts about women, this did not prevent his publishing nor did it make him second guess these incredibly sexualized phrases about the real experiences of womxn. It is important to question why something would need to be published about the male version of the womxn’s experience when that is almost solely the history we receive anyway. The Horrors intro is almost entirely about how feminists are interested in the gynecological aspect of the text, but this limits all women to only their sex, and not even all women. While Horrors does recognize the difficulty of a non-male lifestyle in the nineteenth century within its title, the encouragement of a binary gender situation obscures and ignores all the womxn who did not participate in the standard gender roles of the time and who existed beyond the binary. “Arresting Dress: Cross-Dressing, Law, and Fascination in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco” by Clare Sears opens with the true story of a womxn, who in 1866, was caught “cross-dressing” in public on the arm of another person (who the author calls a man or possibly a woman). The mxn who were regularly arrested for dressed in feminine style clothing called for her arrest, as she had just been ignored during her first appearance so the police arrested the womxn, Eliza DeWolf, the next day (Sears). This text addresses the increasing number of laws against “cross-dressing” put in place, aggressively, in the nineteenth century. While this did have a detrimental effect on those not “dressing in accordance to their sex” (however possible that is), it also publicized those who did it and therefore increased awareness of the womxn who were not wearing “less than three pieces of women’s clothing” (Sears). Other than the language of cross-dressing, the people who suffered these laws were able only to express their gender identity without the structure and the labels we have today and without these, they were even less understood. However, the act of “cross-dressing” is not a politically correct one; clothes do not have gender and people should and get to decide how they identify on their own. By referring to the people who chose to dress eclectically between standard feminine and masculine clothing items, it is easy to assume that they are just doing it for fun or to be weird or because they are weird, and not because they identify differently and present differently on the spectrum than the majority of people in that day and age. While these people did dress in clothes traditionally the opposite of what their assigned gender is (based on sex), it is inappropriate to call them cross-dressers at any point in time.   Gender and sexuality ultimately exist on an intersectional spectrum. Darnell Moore, of Columbia University and inaugural chair of Mayor Cory Booker's LGBT Concerns Advisory, writes that queerness is both inherently structured within each class and then, due to its intersection, is also structureless: “Yet, and again, even in its quests to resist structures, the "queer" exists as another space wherein structure is once again reconfigured and operationalized, particularly as it relates to the ways that some bodies and political interests are made visible in queer movements while others are not” (Moore 259). It is nearly impossible to interpret Mountain Charley’s gender and sexual identity because, at the time of writing, the language did not exist. However, this lack of structure and identity labels does not disprove that Mountain Charley very well could have been butch, transgender, non-binary, gender fluid, or a myriad of different identities. Moore says, “[this] critique, however, was not enough to correct the erasure. Instead, we developed the Queer Newark archive, a structure of documents and material culture, as a means to render visible the lives of queer subjects who have been othered out of queer histories by, often, other queer” (259-260). This is important to note, that while there may be clearer historical texts out there of people being definitively queer (gay or lesbian for example), it should not have to erase the other examples that are less obvious. It is still ever important to recognize those who do not have that label, whether their story was created before or after the label existed, and not to erase them from history, just because they are not outright saying they are homosexual. In chapter three, when Charley decides to act upon the solution they composed, it does appear as Charley’s “only option”. “At length, after casting over in my mind everything that presented itself as a remedy, I determined upon a project, which, improbable as it may appear to my sex and to those who have followed my life thus far, I actually soon after put into execution. It was to dress myself in male attire, and seek for a living in this disguise among the avenues which are so religiously closed against my sex” (Mountain Charley 18). Note that the only concern is against religion, however, Charley does feel that they could find themselves in this role despite their sex. Charley “fully determined to seek a living in the guise of a man” (Mountain Charley 19). While one could argue that this was their only option, the truth is that Charley ultimately could have found another man to marry or become a beggar; most people would not want to live as the gender they do not identify with unless it was life or death, and at this point the options were poverty, admitting the mistakes they made to their father, or finding a new husband.  While Charley never explicitly says that they are a man confidently, rather only commenting on the comfort of being in that “persona”, it is not improbable to assume that Charley was not a cisgender woman. “Although I had resumed my womanly dress and habits, I could not wholly eradicate many of the tastes which I had acquired during my life as one of the stronger sex” (Mountain Charley 29). Had Charley been cisgender, there would have been an experience of gender euphoria at the return to “womanly dress”, instead, Charley was not comfortable in this femininity and still found something to identify with in their masc side. Gender has no perfect definition; it is something that exists as a spectrum and almost no one lies perfectly on either edge. The spectrum is not a single line either, there is not just male and female with a combination in the middle but instead it is more of a circle with different points along the edges: agender, cisgender, genderqueer, bigender, two-spirit, and the list goes on. While the visibility of gender non-conforming people has improved infinitely since the nineteenth century, what with these different labels being created and being publicized, it still is not a perfect utopia of freedom of expression. Much of Mountain Charley’s concerns over dressing “like a man”, such as religion, are still ever present today. Much as one may argue that Charley had to dress as a man to survive, there are thousands of people today who have to dress aligned to one sex or another to survive in the same way. Charley’s story could be comparative to trans-masc or trans-feminine individuals who have to dress according to their assigned gender at birth to continue to have a safe life, whether it exists as protection from being kicked out of their home, attacked or assaulted, or to continue to partake in their own religion. Not only this, but Charley variates between comfort in their masculine dress and their feminine dress and it is inconsistent; there is no true gender euphoria within either. Charley, by this definition, falls under the umbrella of genderqueer. While gender does exist more than dress, the “personas” Charley takes on impacts their personality and skews either side together to create a non-binary individual. While Charley does not have any language to determine this, nor do they necessarily need any because labels are not important for everybody, it is important to be able to consider any and all texts queer texts and not omit anything. Boag says “Period stories of Monahan as well as those of the Mountain Charleys and even Horace Greeley's clerk are progress narratives in their own right: the cross-dresser's transformation into a man is temporary and for some specific purpose. But more, the progress successfully terminates when the subject resumes a womanly identity, passing the remainder of her life, as one period observer put it, in "a sphere suited to her sex." (“Go West” 497). While these womxn often dressed in quintessentially male attire to “save” themselves, they have to go back to what is “suited to her sex”. These womxn were obligated to reveal their sex and align with their sex, whether or not they felt more like themselves when they were dressed in that masculine attire; it was easier to wrap up the story of these Mountain Charleys to have a conclusion that they are “normal” and weak feminine ladies who desire to return to that life, rather than to live out their lives as butch womxn, men, or gender non-conforming individuals. Boag’s argument that these stories are just for “cross-dressers” is not accurate; it is a way to expose the womxn who did not live on their designated gender line and allow for other people to view it in a positive manner.   Ultimately, as scholarship is continually written about these people in history, the language one uses must be updated and relevant with the times; we have the words to describe these people and we should use them. However, we should use them with caution--no one knows these people and their “true” stories, but one can identify transgender and queerness in any text from every point in time, despite the word “transgender” only finding its grounds less than a quarter of a century ago. The biases these authors have must be taken into account as one reads their scholarship and it is important for us, as readers, to recognize transphobic and anti-LGBTQ+ commentary in works and let others know that it is not okay. Due to language and certain views, Mountain Charley and other 19th century texts are critiqued negatively due to either their representation or alleged non-representation of transgender or non-binary individuals.

Works Cited: Barker-Benfield, G J. The Horrors of the Half-Known Life. Routledge, 2000. Boag, Peter. “Go West Young Man, Go East Young Woman: Searching for the Trans in Western Gender History.” The Western Historical Quarterly, vol. 36, no. 4, 2005, pp. 477–497. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/25443237. Boag, Peter. “The Trouble with Cross-Dressers: Researching and Writing the History of Sexual and Gender Transgressiveness in the Nineteenth-Century American West.” Oregon Historical Quarterly, vol. 112, no. 3, 2011, pp. 322–339. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.5403/oregonhistq.112.3.0322. Guerin, E J. Mountain Charley or the Adventures of Mrs. E.J. Guerin Who Was Thirteen Years in Male Attire. University of Oklahoma Press, 1968. Moore, Darnell L. “Structurelessness, Structure, and Queer Movements.” Women's Studies Quarterly, vol. 41, no. 3/4, 2013, pp. 257–260. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23611522. Patterson-Black, Sheryll. “Women Homesteaders on the Great Plains Frontier.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, vol. 1, no. 2, 1976, pp. 67–88. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3346070. Sears, Clare. "Arresting Dress: Cross-Dressing, Law, and Fascination in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco". Duke University Press, 2015.