#i feel sorry for anyone who didn't grow up in this era

[eclaire-went-bam]

hey, what happened to the left believing in second chances? what happened to the belief that if somebody's tangibly doing better, they deserve that chance? you guys realise how common problematic beliefs were when the internet was younger? like, when gamergate was a thing? not that long ago? you guys realise most people on the internet are not from the same moral background as you? you guys realise keeping people out who have changed their beliefs, is only going to discourage more people from doing better? are you guys crazy? why are y'all bringing moral purity into this? it's a powerful thing to recognise things you've been taught were wrong & to then move away from it, especially when you're in a community around it either irl or online. being in a community is such a powerful force in most people's lives. not everyone had the perfect background & not everyone had access to being as educated on social issues as you did. it's fine to personally not forgive someone's problematic history & not interact with them, but to actively exclude them from the cause? get off your high horse, you're harming the movement by gatekeeping it to those with a perfect moral background.

[kinktae]

most undesirable || (M)

Spring has sprung and engagement is on the forefront of all of Regency London's young ladies' minds. All except for yours, of course– the Queen's niece who a certain notorious author has named the Ton's most undesirable.

pairing: lord!jungkook x lady!reader

word count: 5k

genre: BRIDGERTON AU, regency era, angst, eventual smut

warnings: cocaine usage (not oc or jk), oc has dead parents

A/N: this fic was commissioned by the lovely Baby. As per her request, it features me and our beloved izzy! please do let me know if you would like a part two, i have big plans for whats to come next ;)

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PART ONE **UNEDITED**

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A word of profanity left your painted lips as the outsoles of your lace-up boots danced across the limestone floor of the palace, making haste but not in a manner that was unbecoming, your head held high despite your mood running low.

You reached the door of Her Majesty's room with purpose, hands fiddling with the satin of your dress to make sure it covered your shoes. It wasn't that you didn't appreciate the influx of garments your dear aunt had gifted you upon your arrival. Still, the heels Her Majesty had deemed in style this season were particularly uncomfortable. She would no doubt grow sour to see you parading in countryside shoes in her home.

"Your highness." One of the oldest guards snickered, his eyes flicking towards you knowingly as he and another guard moved to open the grand doors to their Queen's private quarters.

You crunched your nose, "Shh." 

Of course, the guards had already read the paper… Rotten gossips.

Willing a smile onto your face, you were let into the room. Your aunt sat at her sofa, the furniture floral in design, its fabric dyed a luxurious red. Between her hands were the source of your dismay, the newest Lady Whistledown papers fresh off the press. 

You hadn't had the pleasure of reading this week's issue personally, but word traveled outrageously fast in the palace; both maids and guards suckers for a good scandal. You knew quite intimately the matter of its content as you were the matter of its content.

"Ah. Niece. There you are.” The Queen called you over, setting the paper down beside her unceremoniously.

You walked closer stiffly, "Aunt Charlotte, you wished to speak to me?"

"You know I adore you, don't you? You're like a breath of fresh air in this miserably dull palace."

Your once tense shoulders relaxed instantly, taking comfort in knowing she hadn't called you in for a scolding.

"It is you that lights up every room you enter, your Majesty." You bowed your head slightly, knowing well that flattery was your best line of defense should the tides change against you. 

"I do, don't I?" She agreed with a grin, before it fell off her face suddenly. "Sorry– whatever were we talking about?"

"Um–"

"Ah, yes! Well, there's no point mincing words. I'm sure you've seen it by now. I mean, can you believe it? That sorrowful sow Whistledown attempting to soil the reputation of my bloodline with such a frivolous title as… as…" She snapped her fingers, forgetting the word she was looking for.

The sound echoed throughout her enormous chambers, currently barren as your aunt was in the process of renovating.

"Ice Princess." You reminded her quietly. She tutted her tongue in recognition.

"How tactless, how tasteless! It is me who sets reputations. Not her. No, no, this simply won't do."

You watched in silence as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Remind me, darling. Why weren't you at the Danbury Ball?"

You shifted, thinking back on the excuse you had given her, "I was… ill."

It was a lie, of course. You had been feeling quite well actually when notice of the ball came 'round. But could anyone fault you? Ballrooms and gowns weren't exactly your area of expertise.

Growing up, your mother and your aunt couldn't be more different; you often heard stories of the two sisters butting heads from your grandfather. One sister went on to marry the king of England, the other a humble traveling merchant. One stood throne in England; the other lived simply in France's countryside. Despite their differences, it was no secret that your aunt loved her older sister dearly, writing to her often in hopes of convincing her to come move to England. When she learned that your mother was with child, she even went as far as to purchase land for her sister and soon to be niece.

But your mother was every bit as stubborn as she was kind. She loved her husband and the life she had built with him, staying by his side until she passed last year. Your poor father was grief-stricken; by eight months, the stress on his heart had become too much, dying nearly a year after your mother.

It was your aunt who had reached out first, offering her deepest condolences and, far more noticeably, all the money you could ever need and your very own suite in the palace.

You weren't exactly sure why you had agreed to such a lucrative proposal. You, much like your mother, adored the countryside and the small town you grew up in. And perhaps that was why you agreed, not to move in, but instead to visit. She was family, after all, something you didn't have very much of left, though you have since come to know of a cousin Friedrich, recently married to an Edwina Sharma that your aunt raved on and on about.

In the week you had been here, you had come to know far more about British aristocracy than you ever wished to know, entirely out of your element amidst the corsets and personal maids. Only recently had you managed to lower your number of attending maids to two, a far cry from the original seven you were greeted with.

You did your best to fit in, but you were no fool. You knew nothing of soireés– or how to dance for that matter, so the moment your aunt spoke of a ball, you knew you had to conjure up some excuse as to why you woefully must decline.

"Exactly! For heaven's sake, you were ill. How dare Whistledown suggest otherwise." She gestured at the staff in the room as though they were her audience.

The sound of the Queen's chamber doors being thrown stole the attention of everyone in the room. Unsurprising to you, two young maids barreling in, tripping on each other.

"S-Sorry, Your Majesty!" The blonde stuttered out.

The brunette nodded in agreement, "Our apologies, Your Majesty. We didn't know where her highness had gone–"

"–We came running as soon as we realized she had snuck off."

Isabella and Roselia. Of course. Your two personal maids. You had only just managed to shake them from your trail when you heard the news that the Queen had sent for you. You should have figured they'd inevitably catch up with you.

They were pleasant enough company, the duo were quite funny, actually, but the constant shadowing was something you learned you rather detested. You understood they were under strict orders by the Queen to ensure your every need was attended to but still… surely even nobility understood the concept of wanting to have a moment alone?

"Oh— Are we interrupting something?" Roselia's cheeks went pink, eyes running over the room as she took note of the Queen's pursed mouth. "We'll just… we can wait outside actually."

"Outside, right! We'll be just outside." Isabella chimed in, heading bowing as the brunette maid yanked her back and out of the room.

"Sorry for the intrusion!"

You stifled a snicker, watching as the young maids slipped back out of the Queen's chambers, shutting the grand doors as they went. Your aunt merely rolled her eyes at the bumbling maids.

Suddenly, her Majesty sniffed, and it was as if a switch had been flipped. All her maids ran towards her, offering handkerchiefs as if their life depended on it. You nearly laughed at such a ridiculous display of servitude, but seeing as you had spent well over a week in the palace, you had become accustomed to such theatrics.

"Whistledown is right about one thing, you know." Queen Charlotte said as her nose was blotted at. "Everyone needs to meet you. And meet you they shall."

In surprise, you pulled your eyes from the doting maids, "They shall?"

"Certainly. We shall have a ball. Here in the palace, of course."

You felt your stomach plummet into your leather-bound boots, your aunt's words echoing.

"All of London's marriage-minded ladies and lords are to be invited. We'll show Whistledown just how splendid you are. Oh! How glorious if you were to find a suitor! That certainly would put to rest that frozen title once and for all."

Just faintly, you could make out the sound of white noise buzzing, mixing with the words the Queen spoke. Anxiety flooded you, deafening your brain's attempts to self-soothe and rationalize that this wasn't the catastrophe you felt it was.

"Aunt Charlotte," you tried to swallow, but your mouth felt stripped of all moisture, "I… I'm not sure if that is wise–"

But it was as if she hadn't heard you, rambling on as if you hadn't objected, "I'll be arranging for etiquette and dance lessons since my beloved sister undoubtedly failed to do the same for you. Are you free this afternoon, darling?"

You stood for a moment, no doubt looking foolish as you struggled to get your words out, "I… I suppose I am…"

"Dear, you look like you’ve just seen a ghost. Are you feeling well?" The Queen cocked her head at you, eyes sizing you up with concern.

"I… I am not feeling my best." You admitted.

"That's the second time now. Growing up in the countryside— all that sun and dirt— it's made you weak of constitution. Hm. Very well. We'll wait until you're feeling better. In the meantime, I will begin planning!"

You averted your eyes politely as she bent over suddenly, inhaling a white powder off her tea tray through a nostril. She sat up with an exhale, eyes fluttering open with a smile.

"Oh, how I love having you come to stay in the palace for a change. I'm terribly bored these days, you know." She sighed. "Did you care to assist me with planning?"

Despite how you felt seconds from unearthing your already digested lunch, you managed an apologetic smile, "I'm not sure I'd be of much help. I'm afraid I've never hosted a party before."

"Yes, my dearly departed sister never cared much for such things, did she? Such a shame she raised you out of the aristocracy." She said.

A furrow found your brow.

"You're wrong, you know." You disagreed before you could think to hold your tongue. And just like that you had become a magnet, all eyes in the room snapping towards your frame.

"Oh? About?" The Queen offered you a pointed look.

"About the way I was raised. I wouldn't change a thing about it. My mother didn't fail me… she loved me. I had a mother and father who loved me. That was worth more to me than any new dress could ever." You said, gesturing to the gifted garment you adorned today, with perhaps a touch more spite than you should've.

Of two things those in the palace knew to be true. One— Her Majesty was not wrong. Ever. Her opinion was the first to seek and the only to matter. Anyone was someone because she said so, whether explicitly or subtly.

And two— her love for her niece ran deeper than even she anticipated, as watching you stand before her defiantly didn't fill her with rage as the staff in the room assumed, but rather with melancholy. 

You looked like your mother just then. It seemed you reminded her of her sister more and more as the days rolled by.

"Your mother would be pleased to hear that." She merely replied, wondering if her sister might be looking down on you both at this moment. At her words, your entire demeanor softened.

"Very well. Off you go." Your Queen sniffed, a handkerchief at her nose within seconds.

Bowing, you moved to exit the room.

"And niece," she called one last time, causing you to turn around, "must you wear such unsightly footwear under your dress?"

You felt your face grow hot, muttering a quiet apology before exiting the room altogether.

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"Chin up, darling." Your aunt reminded you.

You followed her instructions coolly, hoping you didn't look nearly as nervous as you felt.

It was undoubtedly a soirée for the books; every square inch of the ballroom was gilded in gold, the chandeliers' gleam diffusing luxuriously as it bounced around the room.

Eligible men and women of all shapes and sizes had come from far and wide, donned in their absolute best; every possible hue of pink, blue and purple on display for Her Majesty. The ballroom looked akin to the royal grounds, you thought; the cool-toned dresses reminding you of upside-down bellflowers, floating across the marble floor in a synchronized dance.

Flocks of the most noticeable families and town figures had swarmed their way to the royal estate, drowning themselves in champagne as corseted woman fluttered their eyes at the Ton's lords.

But despite their poised smiles, neither woman nor man spared you more than a cautious glance and courteous bow. As the hours ticked by, you couldn't help but feel increasingly uneasy. Was it fear of Her Majesty sitting beside you that kept them away from you? Or was it the less than auspicious picture a certain faceless author had painted for them about you?

"It's rather hot in here, wouldn't you say?" The Queen spoke to you suddenly, looking larger than life from her magnificent throne.

"I suppose." You agreed absentmindedly, far too occupied with how a group of ladies' eyes flickered your way.

She continued, "Perhaps some champagne will cool you down. Why don't you fetch yourself a glass, dear?"

The meaning behind her words was clear. Go. Socialize.

"A splendid idea." You concurred.

Granting yourself one final shaky breath, you straightened up, walking towards the table where drinks were being freshly poured.

"What shall it be, my lady?" A servant greeted you politely as you reached it.

"A glass of champagne, please." You smiled, grateful for a friendly face, perhaps the first of the night.

The servant nodded, moving to open a new bottle.

"She doesn't even hold a title, you know. That Ice Princess."

You blinked, growing still as your ears caught wind of a conversation between party goers not far from you.

"But she's the Queen's niece?"

A sinking feeling washed over you, the kind that made all the other noise in the room disappear. You flirted briefly with abandoning your spot in the room altogether, but the bubbling pour of golden liquid into a glass kept you still. You thanked the servant with a halfhearted smile.

Bringing the glass to your mouth, you turned an ear to the three gossiping ladies, careful to avoid their gaze.

"Word has it her mother married out of the aristocracy." One of them babbled, pulling noises of disbelief from the others.

"Pity. Though, I suppose that explains the appalling way she walks in heels. You'd think she grew hooves from all that time she spent in the countryside." Another prattled. Stifled giggles rang around the group like they were all in some sort of secret, one that wasn't theirs to know. "Can you believe she thinks herself better than us?"

"One more glass, if you please." You asked the same servant, quickly making your way back to the Queen, now with a glass in either hand.

You approached her wordlessly, merely offering her a glass.

"Ah." She accepted the drink eagerly, and for a moment, there was silence, the two family members enjoying the cool velvety acidity of what was no doubt costly champagne.

"It appears the Ton thinks poorly of me." You blurted out.

You felt rather foolish telling this to your aunt. It wasn't as if you really cared what three cankerous aristocrats thought of you. But who else were you to tell? You knew no one.

Your Aunt Charlotte furrowed her delicately painted brow, "Darling, it'll do you well to realize that this Ton doesn't think. They merely reiterate what they've been told. They don't know you. Never mind what they think they know."

But her words went in one ear and out the other, merely background noise to the way you suddenly felt all eyes on you.

And suddenly, your dress was too tight, the ballroom too small. You felt your breath grow shallow, a sure sign of panic. How may others deemed you the subject of gossip tonight? What else were they saying about you?

"I think I should step out for a moment." You muttered.

"Take your maids with you!"

You were halfway across the room before you could even think to register your aunt's reply. Blinking away your tears, you pushed yourself through the crowd, muttering absentminded apologies as partygoers scoffed in protest.

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How small you felt sitting alone in the palace's rose gardens. You wept on a stone bench, wishing ever so badly that your mother was here, looking back with sorrow at how she used to pull you into her lap whenever you were upset. How she used to wrap her arms around you, and everything seemed better, if even for a moment.

How you missed her. How you missed your father. How you missed your life away from this shining, hollow palace.

But they were gone, and the simple life that awaited you back home was gone. Aunt Charlotte was all the family you had left. Without your parents, your home was gone.

"Oh! My lady… forgive me!"

A soft voice caused you to gasp, turning to face the man that had walked in on your self wallowing.

You were up on your feet in seconds, wiping away at your face. 

"No… no, it is I who should apologize! I'm sorry you had to see me like that." Your cheeks burned.

"See you like what?" The mysterious raven-haired stranger pressed, a note of cheekiness to his tone. "Human? Heaven forbid."

You laughed gently, sniffling away your shame. You knew at once he was no threat to you.

The young lord wasn't exactly sure what had led him to the palace gardens; most of the event seemed to be taking place indoors as the night nipped and chilled unforgivingly. Still, a few stray bodies mingled underneath the string of lights that the palace servants had strung up. He had briefly greeted them, passing through the clouds of cigar smoke and small talk before bounding down limestone stairs.

He had tucked his hands into his pants pockets, sighing as the night's festivities grew quieter the further he slipped away, the crunch of wet grass kissing the underneath of his dress shoes. His mind was heavy with thoughts, hardly noticing where his legs had taken him.

It was the sound of your cries that pulled him from his thoughts and jerked him back to his senses.

He was in the Queen's rose garden; he immediately recognized the vibrant flowers and tall bushes. What he failed to recognize, however, was the weeping girl sitting on a stone bench, a look of embarrassment written plainly on her pretty face as she realized she was not alone.

He was quite handsome, you noticed despite your humiliation. He was younger than most of the lords inside, his face still featuring a certain softness despite his sharp features. His gaze was inherently kind, his warm brown eyes all but beckoning you to lower your guards.

"Lord Jeon.” He introduced himself with a bow, eyes never leaving yours. "Forgive me if I frightened you, my lady. I shall return at once and grant you your privacy."

You sank back down onto the bench, pulling the shawl wrapped around your shoulders closer. Your dress was beautiful— you were beautiful… puffy eyes, smeared makeup and all. He couldn't imagine why a lady like yourself would be weeping in the rose gardens unattended.

"It's alright. I supposed I'm not the only introvert at this party tonight. The garden is big enough for the two of us."

Lord Jeon shrugged, "A bit of fresh air is good for the soul."

You watched cautiously as he walked closer, sitting beside you on the opposite side of the bench. 

"You know… I've been told I'm a decent listener." He said suddenly, brown eyes admiring the roses surrounding you.

You blinked, "Is that so?"

"Well… not explicitly. But I've got two ears, so I'd say I do alright." He teased.

You smiled softly, contemplating how much to reveal to this stranger.

"It's… I suppose I'm just a bit out of my element here." 

"You?" He seemed surprised, a slight chuckle of disbelief accompanying his question.

"You laughed." You raised a brow.

He bit down on his lower lip as if contemplating his following words.

"Well, it's just… I can't imagine someone like you having trouble at these events." He confessed.

For a moment, you wondered what he could mean. Looking down at your lap, you realized he must be referring to your extraordinarily fanciful garments.

"Ah. These clothes were a gift, and this hair— well, none of this is me. Not really. Truly, I don't know why I came." You sighed. 

He nodded, "Beginning to feel that way myself, actually. Most lose interest when they hear my name. I'm a bit of a nobody, it seems."

"Funny. It would appear you and I have the opposite problem." You nearly laughed.

"Uptown girl, are you?"

"I'm afraid I've got a bit of a reputation. And no one cares to know whether it's true or not." You said.

He let out a sigh.

"Terrible soirée full of terrible people. I can't say that doesn't happen here often."

You let his words hang in the night's cold air, your fingers intertwining themselves across your lap.

"Is that all?"

Your head turned to face him, growing warm to find him already looking at you.

"Forgive me, it's just," he continued, "your sadness… it feels heavier than you're letting on."

He watched as your body language changed, suddenly tense as if you had built your walls back up.

He was back up on his feet within seconds, his shoes coming into view by the bottom of your dress as he stood in front of you.

Swallowing down a sob, you allowed yourself to look up at him.

"May I?" He asked, extending a hand out as if wanting yours.

Hesitantly, you gave it to him, assuming you would be ushered back onto your feet. To your surprise, however, he merely flipped your hand over, your palm now facing the night sky.

Your eyes widened as he took a finger and traced a line onto your palm. 

No. Not A line. A letter.

L-O-V-E-R-? 

He wrote into your palm. You stared at your hand, skin still buzzing faintly from where his finger had run across.

His mother used to do such a thing when he was younger and much angrier, often struggling to say the words when something troubled him. He only hoped it would work for you the way he had for him.

Frowning, you shook your head. He wrote once again.

F-A-M-I-L-Y-?

A tear fell from you as if instinctively. You nodded your head, confirming his suspicions. Spurred on by his touch, you moved to grab his hand, flipping it upside down as he had done to yours.

L-O-N-E-L-Y you wrote.

"… I just wish I had a little bit longer with them." You found yourself saying once you had finished.

"No time is enough when it comes to the people you love." He spoke with heart as if referring to his own personal melancholy.

Another tear fell from your eyes as his thumb ran over your palm, not to spell anything but to offer his condolences.

"No. I suppose not." You sniffed, a shiver running over you as a crisp breeze passed the two of you.

He wrote into your palm again.

C-O-L-D-?

You let out a laugh, shrugging dismissively.

"Here." Lord Jeon suddenly peeled his suit jacket off his shoulders. You froze, stunned silent as he gently draped it over your shoulders, a gentle smile on his face.

Your chest tightened, moved by the gesture of kindness. But before you could think to thank him, his warm fingers were at your palm once more.

F-R-I-E-N-D-?

His smile tugged at your heartstrings. You wondered how anyone inside could possibly look down on him. You didn't need to know his name to see that he was kind, a worthy suitor for any marriage-minded aristocrat.

F-R-I-E-N-D. You wrote back.

Happy was the girl who sat on the cement bench of the palace's rose garden, wrapped up warm under the jacket of the first person to show you genuine, unconditional kindness since arriving weeks ago.

The two strangers sat in silence for a moment, enjoying the quiet of company. Neither of you knew the other, but there was comfort in the silhouettes of the adjacent shadows at your feet, knowing that neither had ill intent towards the other.

"Do you ever wonder what it might be like to live in a palace?"

You fell stiff, mute as you turned towards him, watching how he looked over at the illuminated estate. 

"Lonely."

"You think?" He pondered.

"I'm not fond of big empty rooms. They tend to make me feel small." You explained quietly.

"Well, should I ever have a palace, there would be no empty rooms. Every room with music and the sound of children's laughter. I would decree it so."

"Children? And where do you figure you might obtain those?" You chuckled.

"Well, they'd be mine, of course." He grinned lopsidedly.

You grinned back at him. "Then the happiest of children they would be."

You suppose the young lord reminded you somewhat of a child. He was a man by every definition of the word, standing tall and proud, but there was something about the way his large eyes took in the palace that was decidedly childlike. Eyes wide and glimmering with awe.

You watched contently as he suddenly noticed the silver plated container that sat by the leg of the bench; an unopened bottle of champagne sat neatly in a bed of ice, several glasses along side it.

Your dear aunt thought of everything when it came to party planning, you were coming to find out.

"Shall we?" He smirked suggestively.

"I don't see why not." You laughed.

The two of you giggled as he attempted to open the bottle, champagne spilling everywhere. He tried to pour you a glass neatly, but your new friend had no future in bartending, champagne spilling over the glass' edge and onto your fingers.

Sticky but smiling, you brought your glass up, mirroring him.

"A toast." He decided, his own glass now only half full from his carelessness.

"To?" You questioned.

He contemplated for a moment, meeting your inquisitive eyes innocently. A boyish smile broke out across his face.

"To us, of course. Tonight's most undesirables." He declared, making you chuckle.

But before you could touch glasses…

"Your highness!"

Your eyes went wide, your stomach dropping as a certain blond maid came scrambling into the garden.

"Isabella! Please! Just 'my lady' will do." Heat rocketed up your neck, ears no doubt hot to the touch. 

Her hands fell to her knees, clearly out of breath from running around the palace grounds, undoubtedly in search of you.

"My lady, I should advise you to return to the party. Her Majesty the Queen has someone she wants you to meet." She cautioned.

You cursed internally.

"Of course, she does. Give me just a moment then. I'll be over shortly."

The young maid's eyes flickered over to Lord Jeon, cheeks rosy.

"But your highness—"

"Thank you, Isabella." You cut her off curtly. 

The young maid gave you two one more final look over before nodded, pardoning herself with a curtesy.

Hesitantly, you turned back towards Lord Jeon, unsure what to make of the look of disbelief clearly written across his face.

Awkwardly, you brought your glass to your mouth, taking a cautious sip.

"Your highness? You're a princess?" He gawked, eyes still wide. 

"No!" You quipped. "Not… technically?"

The young lord merely blinked at you, his doe eyes telling you everything his mouth wasn't.

You were rambling before you could help yourself.

"M-My mother is the Queen's sister. Technically speaking, she held the title of 'Princess.' Though, I suppose if my mother were born a man then, yes, that would make me a princess— titles are patriarchal in nature, it's all… very complicated, really…" 

You felt like you couldn't take in a deep enough breath, the chilly air now burning your lungs.

"So… not a princess. Just… daughter of a princess." He reiterated, clearly stunned.

You felt a frown form on your face, all your etiquette instructor's reminders of poise and manners slipping from your mind.

"I am the Queen's niece. We shall leave it at that."

The handsome lord had the most fascinated look on his face, eyes locked on the way your jaw twitched, mouth shut rigidly to hold back the slew of word vomit you instinctively felt compelled to let out.

The way he held your eyes – the intensity behind his dark orbs – made you uneasy yet engrossed you all the same.

You bit down on the side of your cheek, "Are you upset that I didn't tell you?"

He shook his head suddenly as if trying to shake off his shock.

"No. I'm not."

"Are you… disappointed?" You grimaced.

You hadn't the faintest clue as to what was running around in his handsome head.

"Disappointed?" He cocked his head.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what the hell you're thinking right now, and it's frankly unnerving." You frowned.

The raven-haired man let out a noise that toed the line between amusement and disbelief. 

"I think you owe me a toast… your highness." He teased.

Rolling your eyes, you failed to fight back a smile, bringing your champagne glass up to meet his, his smirk assuring you that whoever your aunt wished you to meet could wait a moment or two. 

[carterthefrog]

sorry still not out of my maze runner era. i've been trying to figure out how to articulate this for the longest time but there's something about newt's death in the book and its specific flavor of tragedy that's completely lost in the movie. i understand why they had to change the mechanics of the flare so much in the movies to make it translate well to screen, but what they did changed newt's story for the worse in my opinion.

in the book, it's not a matter of 'they had a cure but they couldn't get it to him in time!' or 'he could've lived if only he hadn't been bitten!' or anything. and this is where the movie got it so wrong. because yes, easily preventable deaths are very tragic, but that's also the kind of tragedy that we see all the time. we've grown used to characters that are always one minute too late, characters who made one wrong misstep.

but what we're not used to? characters that were doomed from the beginning, characters that don't survive simply because they were never meant to. in the books, newt's fate has been sealed since he was first picked for the trials. he was always going to be exposed to the flare and he was always going to die because of it and that type of tragedy is not something that we are emotionally equipped to handle. because that's really all it was. a decision someone made over a decade ago. it also would've made it easier if it was some grand destiny written in the stars type thing. it's also easier to digest deaths that are prophesied and fated and for a greater good, but this was none of that. this was just death.

newt was always going to die and it was for the simple reason that they needed a control group for their experiment. his death was so impactful because the circumstances were utterly devoid of drama. he didn't die saving anyone, he didn't die to fulfill anything, and he didn't die because of any sort of ironic timing. it completely subverted every single expectation we have of fictional dying, and it just made it feel so much more raw and real than anything else. there's a reason why you can tell me the exact page number that newt died on but you probably can't do the same for any other fictional deaths of equal significance.

anyways this post is getting way too long but i have a lot to say abt this. the maze runner was my absolute favorite series growing up and im still peeling back the layers of why that is abd just ughhhhhhh

[alice1505]

I made the mistake of rewatching Sherlock because I never did finish it back in the day (I was -clenches fist- seething over the queerbaiting and rage quit after not fully watching episode 1 of s4) and I'm here to make my side hyperfixation (what year is this??? Who am I???) Tumblr's problem. The more I sit with s4, the less I like it 😂 There were pieces and elements I liked, but overall, it left a bad taste in my mouth. Forgive me if any or all if these points have been talked to death, I missed all the discourse and I'm hella late, but I need to flail and send my thoughts into the void because what even WAS that season? I can't believe I avoided it for years, got drawn in by a couple of tiktoks making fun (affectionately) of superwholock Era and That Scene about the fucking phone charger port, binged all of it, only to be left with..... that. Not nearly as disappointing or rage inducing as spn's ending but by God, did it leave a hole in me. So please ignore my rambling thoughts as I slap them down here for my own sanity.

• First and foremost, what - and I can't stress this enough - the fuck was UP with the assassination of John's entire character???? What was that??? Why????

• Related to that point - I can appreciate the angst point and potential it provides, as I'm reading many, many fics, but AYO WHY didn't anyone rip John an entire new one for that beat down he did on Sherlock????? Hello???? 911?????

• Tell me why everything felt so stilted and borderline icy. Like I get the high emotions and shit, but after a certain point... 😭 was there a falling out between Benedict and Martin that I'm not aware of? Did they just try to ungay everything so hard and were so pissed at the audience picking up everything THAT THEY PUT???? into this show and their interactions that they just hit the brakes hard enough to make everything feel weird???

• A lot of it felt weird. Off kilter a little. Forced in some places, toned down in others (and toned down where it shouldn't have been), a nod to ships but weirdly/hatefully??? Idk if that makes sense. Like the whole Sherlock and Molly phone call (I do not mean any hate to this ship, I really hope it doesn't come off this way. Not my cup of tea but you are valid). Why was Molly so upset BEFORE the call? Did I miss something? Also I don't personally think or feel she'd still have those feelings for him??? I??? I am bamboozled.

• to that whole point, Eurus was.... Hmm. Mmmm. She was. Something. (Confused derogatory)

• I like Mary as a character. I also hated her. (Definitely biased by my shipper trash ass self for johnlock, I'm sorry). Wtf were those messages, please. Edit: AND ANOTHER THING. John's reaction to Sherlock's death - awful, gut wrenching, beautiful, my heart breaks with and for him, utterly devasting. John's reaction to Mary's death - had me sitting there like🧍‍♀️(it was weird. so weird. awkward. w h y. (we know why, but also the acting choices were Something TM, in both cases! for different reasons!) i'm sorry i just can't get past my anger and put off-ness with mary, fun as she could be)

• why did mycroft and John switch roles 😭 pls. The last episode was just. So Much. The lackluster responses from John, to John, to Sherlock, between them, like.... hello???? Who are these people?? Help me. Moriarty saved me for a brief shining moment tho, God bless.

There's more I could spew, but that's what's sitting right at the top of my head. I guess all this just to say, if a show runner/writer really just fucking hates the audience they got (instead of the one they wanted), they probably shouldn't have fucking become a show runner/writer in the first place. Either hand it to someone who can actually handle it and listens, or fuck off. I will never understand when shows and plots and characters gets kamikaze'd because of a show runner being pissy and egotistical. Like ????? Grow up. Learn from Bryan Fuller and Hannibal or something.

Sorry for all the rambling, bless anyone who reads this and makes sense of it 😂

[mintacle]

Also regarding fanon Tim it is really pity that a lot of fans and even writers regard Tim as a mini-Bruce when i feel he should be opposite especially when it comes to their social circle. Like Tim is fascinating to me because he looked at the dark and gloom and isolation of both Gotham and Bruce and went, "It deserves to be saved. I will save it and i'll do it without it destroying me" (he failed but he tried, god did he try).

If Bruce Wayne is a mask for Batman then Robin is a mask for Tim Drake.

If Bruce is actively isolating himself then Tim is actively seeking people out (even if it sometimes means slight stalking and casual breaking and entering, which, Tim, buddy).

When his parents died Bruce buried the child he was and dedicated his life to make sure something like this would never happen to anyone else and when Jason he almost went and broke his one rule. When everyone in Tim's life was dead or dying he tried to held onto every little thing that could bring that normalcy back from before everything went to shit, whether it be cloning, trying to find Bruce, or even lazarus pit.

It is why Tim becoming batman always ends horribly, not because Tim is secretly a deranged guy but because becoming batman means affectively killing what makes him Tim Drake. It is also why i think the best ending for him would be retirement, the boy who chose to take up the robin mantle grows up to be the man who chose to give up the mantle (naturally this would take a lot of development since i feel Tim is rather addicted to it but also i think it would be good. I also feel he would still do hero work on side but as a consultant or support)

(I alse feel isolation is a major struggle for both of them. However Bruce embraces it, becomes a part of it, while Tim rejects it, loses to it. A Lonely Place of Dying indeed)

(i am so sorry i feel like i have more generalized both the characters and could be wrong about them since i am still newer to the comics but these are my thoughts from what i have seen so far)

Nah, anon, you're valid. I'm not crazy into Tim and haven't read anything with him yet (though @benbamboozled has convinced me to read Young Justice 98), from what I know of the canon version of Tim, he is very critical of Batman, which you kind of have to be if your goal is to help them (as opposed to enabling someone)

Here we have Tim on Bruce's approach to paranoia and work colleagues:

which will for me always be core part of Tim's characterization. He's very far from the boy who will blindly follow Bruce to get his approval. I think of all the Robins Tim might be the least interested in Bruce's approval. (Modern era Dick is weirdly open about wanting Bruce's approval which I don't like. Nightwing is for me ideally in extreme denial about his and Bruce's interdependance.)

Tim is far too aware of Batman's problems to want to become him. This is the kid that became Robin at Batman's lowest low. He didn't become the sidekick/ward/son of a vigilante who was larger than life, he became the support of a broken down man. It makes sense to have Dick and Jason involuntarily idolize the man, because the Batman they knew was amazing, but the Batman Tim knew? That was a spiralling man.

Which might also be why it bothers so many people that Tim isn't allowed to grow out of the Robin mantle, it feels extremely natural for him to be getting over his original mantle and connection to Batman.

[be-the-glenn-to-my-maggie]

do you have any post adoption of spider headcanons? i live for your content about him and the rest of the sullies lol

Hi! I actually have been working on a longer post about this, but it is a tad bit of a bummer so I'll do a lighter one here!! Sorry if it takes me a couple days, which I have a feeling it will! You all know by now I'm a MASSIVE Spider Sully truther and I'm assuming this is in response to my recent post adoption Spider post, so here are my Spider Sully headcanons in that world (if you wanted a different au, Spider Sully at the Omaticaya growing up or Spider Sully in modern era or something else, please let me know):

-There are certain things about Na'vi life that Spider isn't actually used to, because he would go home to Hells Gate at night and was excluded. He is now forcefully included. Lo'ak, Spider, and Kiri play a game called 'Is this Spider or is this just weird?' where Spider has to guess if the thing he's unfamiliar with is a universal thing (the way they bathe, Spider has a shower in his bathroom at Hells Gate) or is this a weird Metkayina thing (the way Ao'nung chooses to climb up to the rock pools at the edge of the reef, definitely weird and definitely funny). It gets kind of cliquey when anything they do for weeks with the Metkayina kids devolves into the three of them whispering and giggling to each other. It almost ruins their entire relationship with Ao'nung, until Lo'ak caves and tells Tsireya what they're doing.

-Kiri, Lo'ak, and Spider are just weirdly cliquey in general. Tsireya, Ao'nung, and Rotxo hadn't noticed before with just Kiri and Lo'ak because they'd been missing the third musketeer, but now it's almost impossible to be around them. They have so many inside jokes and sometimes they all look at each other and have silent conversations with their eyebrows (Ao'nung never thought he'd be jealous of eyebrows) and facial expressions and then act like a decision has been made. It's just that the three of them didn't have many other close friends at home, not with a trust and a bond like the one they all have, so it's hard to adjust and add people. Tuk was natural because she grew into them, but going swimming with Rotxo it's almost hard to remember to include him. A distinct effort goes into the three of them unlearning their insular ways and letting new friends into the clique lol.

-All the Sully's are very protective of Spider for a long time. No one can even touch him for a couple months after he's back. Tsireya teaching him to breathe underwater still somehow ends in Kiri hissing at her when she goes to touch him. Kiri was always protective of Spider, but Lo'ak always treated him like anyone else. Most of his scars and injuries growing up came from dumb stuff Lo'ak suggested they do or accidentally caused when roughhousing. Now Lo'ak treats him like he's fragile, not letting anyone near him. It takes them a while to get back into their normal rhythm, or at least a new normal. Probably after some sort of dangerous thing Ao'nung convinced Spider to do goes wrong.

-Yeah, definitely the first time Spider is let out of any of the Sully's sight he's frat boy hazed by Ao'nung, who is NOT A FAN for the first month of so of his stay there. Ao'nung learned his lesson from the Three Brothers Rocks incident and was like leaving him right at the edge of the reef is good. Spider just attracts all danger though. Before he can be killed by anything, Jake's Lo'ak spidey sense goes off but Lo'ak is right in front of him so it can only mean one thing: now theres too of them. Neytiri finds Spider minutes after on her ikran.

[rebelsandtherest]

ok so i’m going to preface this ask by saying that the name alfred is given to the first born males on my dads side, so it’s a name near and dear to my heart, that said, there’s an angle i’ve never (or in all likelihood missed) seen between alfred and arthur. and i crave your opinions.

growing up i knew that the name alfred became popular in the victorian period since the english started looking into history and saw king alfred and decided he was pretty great. so i wonder how arthur felt, to see and hear his estranged sons name so often. of course he’s glad that his country’s putting some respect on king alfred, but i can see him calling someone named alfred by their last name to avoid saying it out loud. “alfred, lord tennyson.” “who?” “lord tennyson.” “not a fan.” the man’s conflicted and petty.

or it could be the opposite, it could remind him why he chose the name to begin with. imagine him overhearing a man in a pub proudly boasting about how fast his little alfie is growing, showing off a picture he keeps of the lad. and arthur can’t help but smile to himself and feel a wee bit envious. a few situations like that, and he’s tentatively writing formal letters that go unanswered. a few decades and a great rapprochement later he can finally say alfred out loud without tasting bile.

or he could be so far up his own ass that he doesn’t even notice the trend in names. idk. definitely drunkenly hums ‘what’s it all about (alfie)’ in the 60s.

Ooooh man this is a good question! Thanks for sending in the ask.

This became an immensely long reply with a bad history lesson included (because I'm relying on my ADHD memory and hoping it doesn't scramble itself between my brain and the keyboard), so... sorry about the length.

Anyway.

I think the Victorian revival of "Alfred" as a name would have affected Arthur in a few ways, but within his context, I imagine that those moments would be relative sporadic.

So a few things:

First: The name itself is Anglo Saxon—the original ash (Æ) was replaced with an A to fit contemporary English spelling, and it would have been pronounced a little different obviously, but it is remarkably unchanged for an early medieval name over 1000 years old. So Arthur is probably used to hearing the name at least once in a blue moon, and I doubt anyone was much confused when he gave the name—even if it wasn't in vogue at the time—to his firstborn.

Second: The Victorian age for Arthur was absolutely chock-full of wars, particularly wars overseas. Victoria was called empress for a reason, because she had a penchant for stealing other people's land and sovereignty. So whether Arthur was enthused by the nonstop action or not (I'd wager he was, most of the time), he was incredibly preoccupied and probably didn't have time to mope about his son, so if the name ever made Arthur think about Alfred, it would be a short-lived reverie.

Third: The Victorian era was a historically interesting time for UK-US international relations. Your average USA citizen probably didn't spare much thought for English subjects an ocean away, but, on the whole, white Americans remained enamored with England as the "mother land", were keen on trans-Atlantic commerce, and eager to prove themselves as equals to their allies in Europe. This didn't exactly work.

Even so, Britain and the USA continued to host a bizarre mix of cultural proximity and mutual contempt. Bad blood had gone stale by the beginning of Victoria's reign, but stale blood bred an enduring sense of pettiness, especially on the British side. Though the two nations' diplomatic and economic relationships were strong and well-maintained, events like the USA's rather embarrassing showing at the 1851 Great Exhibition in London were devoured by the British public in a feeding frenzy of schadenfreude that solidified a kind of national desire to dunk on Americans whenever possible.

While Brits still relish dunking on Americans, the early Victorian need to put America down as an economic and cultural peer began to shift, at least in some ways, in the second half of the 19th century. The American Civil War devastated the English economy, particularly of the northern half of the country which depended immensely on American cotton to fuel its textile industry. The entire war, its fallout, and notably the end of slavery in the USA, were all topics that British citizens would have seen daily in their newspapers, a source of interest and immense anxiety. By this point, Britain as a whole had forcibly been made aware of how, like it or not, the state of the USA's government and economy affected their daily life in ways too large to ignore.

Whilst America quite literally murdered itself over the problems it'd decided to ignore for a century, Britain and Europe were all deep in the industrial revolution—hell, it started in England, hence the textile mills. England and the young German Confederation were both heavy hitters in the game, and improvements to seafaring technology as well as Britain's relentless expansion across the globe was continuously bringing in new wares from all around the world for European industrialists to copy and mass produce. European trade and industrial competition was booming.

Meanwhile, America remained intensely focused on itself, and understandably so. With the absolute disaster of Reconstruction, westward expansion, industrial revolution, and lest we forget, a bloody parade of genocides and land wars, the USA had plenty to be worried about within its own (expanding) borders. It was not isolationist in the true sense, but was not exactly competing for European attention at the same levels at it had earlier in the century.

However, when the USA eventually gathered itself to take more of an international presence, it would do so in a way that would take the entire world by storm. The sheer speed, size, and production volume of American industries began to challenge their European competitors. If you were white and well-connected or just immensely lucky, this was the age when the American Dream was born. The US military had undergone immense expansion since the Civil War, and they went from having a young navy only just big enough to form a blockade to having a navy large enough to send a top-of-the-line fleet around the world with literally no other purpose but to flex in front of their allies (and enemies) not even 50 years later.

.....This has been a very long winded way to explain that, while the Victorian Era was the heyday of Arthur's imperialist dreams and victories, it was also the very nascent stages of Alfred coming into his own and more or less forcing himself back into dear old dad's life. Coming hot on the heels of Victoria, The American Gilded Age, the Progressive Era, and the Great Rapprochement were all just around the corner. These shifts of history—to say nothing of the quickly-approaching storm clouds of World War—would bring father and son back together and force them to mend their relationship, at least as much as they could.

I think, in the early Victorian age, when 'Alfred' came into vogue after so many centuries, a part of Arthur would hear it with a sinking feeling in his gut, because he was certainly old enough to have seen the future on the horizon. Maybe it wasn't clear, or concrete, maybe he couldn't put it into words. But he would know, in some instinctual sense, that Alfred's star was rising in more ways than one, and that he'd would need to brace himself and his empire for whatever came next. So sometimes, when he heard the name, some indistinct prophecies would flash before his mind's eye, filling him with ominous dread that he couldn't have named.

Sometimes, if he'd been drinking or just in a sentimental mood, he would hear the name and reminisce on both the King Ælfred, and the golden son who bore his name. He would wax poetic about his firstborn and all that he'd accomplished in his life—daring even, perhaps for the first time in his life, to praise Alfred's tenacity, conviction, and strength during his fight for independence. He would of course be mortified by the drunken memory the next day.

Sometimes, it takes him off guard and he turns his head, fully expecting Alfred himself—a toddler, a child, a teenager, a young man—to step through the door and greet him. It lasts only moments, and the empty feeling that follows usually sends Arthur directly into some mentally or physically taxing task, to avoid uncomfortable emotions.

But I think more than anything, the re-emergence of the name would make Arthur feel old. So very, very old, when he continuously, despite repeated embarrassments, pronounces the name in the way he learned as a boy, with the long-i ash sound that his people forgot to pronounce somewhere along the last century or ten. The very same pronunciation mistake he couldn't seem to stop making all those years ago, when Alfred was small, still learning English and fully convinced a boy could have two versions of a name.

The same pronunciation that, even today, would make Alfred's head twitch up, looking for his father.

[spectralsleuth]

What are any rise fanfic recs that you have?

I got so excited for this ask. Okay so, I'm not going to recommend things with over 1k kudos on Ao3, because they're easy to find. 'Tale of Spirits', 'Sorry, Teenage Mutant What Now', 'Ronin Discord Admin', etc. (I would also LOVE to rec things besides RoTTMNT if anyone is interested...) But here's one's I've reread MULTIPLE times.

tried to grow up good by @sroloc--elbisivni Absolutely banger of a Casey Jones fic. The pinnacle of Casey Jones fics. It's the second in the series, and the first one is very good as well, but this one reads just fine as a stand-alone. Casey Jones Jr. stealing cars is just very near and dear to me.

The Whispering Forest and Other Tales ALSO by @sroloc--elbisivni, as well as Waywayrdwitchcat. (If they have a tumblr someone let me know please.) I NEED EVERYONE TO READ THIS FIC SERIES. it's probably my favorite ROTTMNT fic series of all time. (I'm going to say that a lot in this list but it's all true.) The whole series is absolutely wonderful, spooky, romantic, and set in feudal era Japan in a world similar to the Usagi Yojimbo comics. If you're worried about not knowing Usagi Yojimbo comics, don't be. I didn't and had no trouble following along; it provides all the context you need, and blends it with the ROTTMNT universe anyway.

BuzzfeedUnsolved: The Strange Disappearance of Lou Jitsu Self explanatory, a fic in a Buzzfeed Unsolved True Crime episode format. Hilarious, and the author did a FANTASTIC job of capturing what I love about cheesy crime youtube. Lighthearted and short!

Things That Ought To Crawl by @thisonesforturtles Sep!Donnie AU, wonderful Draxum adjusting to rehabilitating effectively completely feral and very young Donnie who doesn't remember much, and a lot of very cool and incredibly smart mystical head canons. Hugin and Munin are absolutely wonderful in this as well. It actually takes the idea of what a feral child growing alone would result in, and digs into it. (Not completed)

No Rest For The Weary by @plothooksinc POST MOVIE FIC probably my all time favorite post movie fic actually. THIS HAS EVERYTHING. I won't say anything about it because most of the twists and turns are so interesting I don't want to ruin them. Mind the tags though! (Not completed)

And LASTLY Empathy is Learned by @alicat54c If you enjoyed LSoW, you'd enjoy this but in a different way I think! I don't want to spoil too much, but it has a lot of cute fluff, turtley nonsense, and little April O'Neil. (Not completed, locked to AO3 users)

If anyone every wants any fic recs, please feel free to ask. I have PLENTY, and not just for ROTTMNT.

[poppy-metal]

must hear about the lore of ur challengers oc’s

dolly is the youngest. she's only about 19, and everyone else is in their 30s (i love an age gap sorry) she's a bit of a mean girl, but she's not good at it, she craves approval to much to be truly harsh to anyone. she sucks at tennis currently which is a burden she carries because her parents are famous prodigies. she wants to be good at it, but her frustration of not being great immediately leads her to acting out. skipping practice to go party instead, running through coaches with her lack of discipline and her snappy attitude. she wants to be seen as a big grown up, alot more mature and wordly than she is, but she's really a virgin that's never gone further than kissing, though she fibs that she's done all kinds of stuff to her friends. she wants to appear to be a vixen. she wants to be alot of things, she just lacks faith in herself. and she's a bit too coddled with her plush lifestyle and parents neglect. what she needs is a firm hand, really. a mother figure, a father figure, any authority.

marigold comes from a big family. she's an older sister so alot of responsibility is placed on her from a young age to look after others and not herself. didn't really have time to be a girl and go to sleepovers since all of her siblings are brothers. she's grown up rough housing with them and sharing a room with them. tennis is an outlet for her, something that's purely just for her - it also opens her up to a new world full of people she doesn't know. women and men who notice her as what she is - a girl. probably grows close to art and patrick in their juniors era, probably, definitely, is in love with one of them. she doesn't know how to really flirt or make herself available to others, she's always been "one of the guys" and she resents it even as she doesn't know how to change - doesn't know what clothes would look good on her or what makeup to wear. feels like she'd look like a clown but. the urge to be noticed and seen is strong.

[kumezyzo]

angst Sapnap fic where singer!reader publishes an album after their breakup and Sapnap is listening to it knowing the songs are about him?

its sad, really. you two didn't break up because of a horrible fight that went too far or an unfair infidelity. you broke up because of your schedules. you would go months without seeing each other, each one of you respectively getting sucked up into your work. texts and calls slowly growing smaller and shorter with too much time passing between each one. so you two decided it would be easier to break up.

there was no bargaining or begging the other stay. no promises to make more of an effort to stay in contact. and dont take it the wrong way. You two didn't do this because that spark was gone, but because that spark, that love, was burning too strong for either of you to hold each other back.

maybe it's true that neither of you dated for a while after. maybe you each cried for hours and mourned the loss of what could have been. but it's known that when someone has experienced heartbreak in a way that could never be described, they turn to what they're best at. their escape.

your ex-boyfriend worked on himself, physically that is, and threw himself into longee recording sessions. people argued it was the best era of his career in those months after you two split.

and you poured your soul into writing your music. creating melodies where people could feel your sorrow. when you tried to write about something else, it kept coming back to him. the image of his green eyes and the sound of his beautiful laugh oozing through music. and in the deepest part of your files, you ignored the song you were writing for him before you split.

the album you put out six months after the breakup was your best selling. people's theories of it being about him turned out to be true, and it gave everyone the insight that it was simply the case of the right person at the wrong time. a peak into your love.

but it wasn't that simple. in fact, it was too complex for anyone to truly understand and feel your feelings through the speakers of their phones or earbuds. but he understood it.

he listened to it on stream to "show his support" but grew morbidly silent after hearing the first two tracks. he was tempted to turn off the stream, crawl into bed, and listen to your voice as if you were singing directly to him and only him.

and in a way, you were. the laughing on the last track on the album was meant for him. who else would know it was from the one night you two went on a late night ice cream run and thought to 'vlog it'. who else would know that the title of the song was one that he had come up with when you asked him the simple question, "what would you want me title a song if i made one about you?"

"nickles," he responded, "because my name is Nick."

who else would know that the title of the album was Spare Change, not because what you felt for him was like the unwanted almost valueless money at the bottom of your bag, but because you had so much leftover love for him. you had so much love for him that you would find it in random places, and you couldn't get rid of it.

sorry if this isn't what you asked for, im just in a weirdly poetic mood 😭😭 i hope you guys enjoyed, tho! this was really fun to write. and i guess im kinda back? idk dont get your hopes up 😅 -Nony

[witchering10123]

what taylor swift album each of the gaang would fuck with

(in my not exactly humble but ultimately correct opinion) you're in for the long haul so it's under the cut :)

aang: fearless and lover, don't get me wrong, he loves the sad songs, the heartbroken songs, the angry songs just as much as anyone else, but he just connects with like, the slight naivety of it all? like he's def matured since his first few crushes but it's the joy of that first love that really sweeps him off his feet ya know? and then the lover album is a more mature perspective on like a loving relationship ("cornelia street" who???) and he just loves it - OH and 1989, he and suki FUCK with 1989

katara: she's a reputation girl no doubt about it, "don't blame me" is literally her song, she owns it thank you very much, and she and zuko are reputation besties who have all the merch and they scream all the lyrics and wholeheartedly believe that rep tour is the best tour of all time HOWEVER she loves loves loves "marjorie", "don't you ever grow up" (balls her eyes out at the pair of them, but when she first heard dyegu she was sobbing -) and while they're not her fav albums, she loves singing fearless and lover with aang

sokka: ok, sokka is one of those fans who you don't realise are that intense until they are screaming themselves hoarse at folklore, mkay? I'm talking, it's not just hakoda and bato giving him the worried side-eye, it's everyone AND their mother (well, not everyone's mother but ya know) cause like, sokka was DEF involved in this major college cheating scandal and got his heart uber uber broken and had no support system because he just... didn't tell anyone because he didn't want people to worry and so screaming folklore is his therapy session. oh, and when he was dating yue their album was speak now, they literally did their homecoming king and queen dance to "enchanted" they were that couple, and he still loves the album so much but he just... can't speak for hours after a folklore song pops up, and couldn't speak for a week after the eras tour (in a similar vein, he's a big "the archer" fan, he and toph vibe with it so hard)

toph: she loves reputation (NOT for the same reasons as katara and zuko but they all still vibe with each other) because there's soooo much happening and she can literally feel the beat in her bones and the songs slap so hard and she can rage in peace :))) also she fucks so hard with "picture to burn", the harry styles saga (style, ootw, iion, wonderland, etc), "holy ground", "miss americana and the heartbreak prince" and "the archer" (and believe me she will go OFF at anyone who doesn't like the archer because "the beat's not supposed to drop, that's the whole point -)

zuko: reputation reputation reputation. all the fucking way y'all. is it shocking that "I did something bad" is his song, not his favourite (his favourites are the speak now vault tracks, "that's the way I loved you", "message in a bottle", and "wonderland" but that's neither here nor there) and no one, NO ONE gets in the way during the line "if a man talks shit then I owe him nothing" like sorry taylor, that's zuko's line actually. also he thought he was going to love folklore but then "seven" came up and he literally could not cope, and when he heard evermore was going to be in a similar vein he refused to listen to it too - he did eventually listen to the albums when he got into a better headspace for them and now really does likes them, but he avoids "seven" like the plague

suki: suki loves the breakup albums, red and midnights, and everyone, including suki, is confused because no offence to my girl but she's had one break up and that was with sokka, and whole it was sad, it was mutual and nothing bad happened they just decided they'd be better as friends, but she loves the albums so so much, so who is anyone to deny her that? also, she didn't like "me!" at first and thought it was so so cringe, but now she loves it and hates that she used to hate it and hates that taylor doesn't play it on the set list at concerts due to people hating on it (even though suki would never tell taylor that she hated on one of her songs, she still feels guilty) - btw, she and aang are besties and they work at the same place and it takes them like forty minutes on a good day to drive there so they blast 1989 the whole time and it's such a bop

yue: speak now girly, did I fucking stutter? she ate that album up when it first came out and she ate up the rerecording when that came out too, and don't get me started on the vault tracks (she feels as if a piece of her childhood was missing because "electric touch" ft fallout boy wasn't on the og track and she looooves fallout boy) "enchanted" is her and sokkas song and when it comes on they do a lil dance together even though they don't love each other in the same way anymore, they still love each other!!! but she now loves "enchanted" separate from sokka ya know? yue also loves midnights, literally because suki loves it so so much so yue listened to it for her (simp) and fell in love with it (and suki, it was truly a win win situation for her) but she specifically listens to midnights: 3am version because "paris" is her favourite and she doesn't understand how anyone (ahem, suki) could listen to midnights without listening to "paris" at least three times

azula: we all know she used to pretend to hate taylor swift but now she respects the hustle (but she's not a die hard swiftie and will happily critique her alongside katara, who azula was surprised to see critiquing taylor but katara's got her priorities in place she knows what's up) and azula loves red (duh) and evermore. surprisingly, she's not as into reputation as zuko and katara, and while she enjoys some of the songs on there, she won't intentionally listen to the whole album on her lonesome. she, sokka, and ty lee wore matching "cowboy like me" outfits to the eras tour

mai: fearless, and HEAR ME OUT HEAR ME TBE FUCK OUT I'm right. she's like aang in this regard, she grew up with all these expectations on her for corporation alliances and shit and she couldn't help but picture herself finding love for HERSELF having the CHOICE like, she will defend "love story" to the day she dies because it resonated so much with baby mai finding love against all odds and at the end her parents agreeing to it. now she's older and recognises a few, uh... interesting points about her upbringing, but she's still gonna defend baby mai's love for fearless. I know that the tortured poets department hasn't come out yet but... I have a feeling that mai will fuck SO HARD with that one too, but she's more a fan on individual songs than whole albums ("delicate", "paper rings" (ty lee simp lmao), "seven", "better than revenge", "getaway car", "endgame", etc)

ty lee: she actually sobbed when lover came out, I can't tell you how much lover resonated with her, she loved the aesthetic the vibe the songs, and like she literally had imposter syndrome from being a swiftie because while she appreciates the angry and sad songs, she's searching for the joy and a lot of swifties were like "no she's past that point so we have to be too" and she felt quite isolated BUT then taylor released lover and ty lee felt so so seen cause like, it's a happy album with sad songs and that's all a girl can ask for. ALSO she loves "bejeweled" and "slut!" I kid you not "slut!" is probably her fav song even though it's not on lover. she also loves evermore because it's a sad album with happy songs (do you see) and she broached the idea of her and azula wearing matching "cowboy like me" outfits but azula didn't respond at first and ty lee thought that it wasn't a good idea but azula didn't respond because she was texting sokka and sokka fell in love with the idea and they spent like two weeks figuring out exactly what it would look like and they brought their ideas to ty lee for the final approval and she was like "... you guys actually wanna do this?" but yeah. they all slayed

ok now onto the adults I'll be quick

hakoda screams louder but bato knows more songs, like hakoda is making himself heard what a king, but there's quite a few songs he's unfamiliar with. bato is singing like, the usual volume but he's consistent, he's singing along to every song

hakoda loves 1989 and reputation because the whole drama happened during his and bato's breaks between tours and then they got sent off before reputation came out, so hakoda was so invested and then really pissed cause he had to wait a couple of months before he got back so katara could explain the intricacies of the new album to him

bato is like sokka, he loves folklore not because he's a folklore girly™ but just because of the vibes, however bato 🤝 mai, resonating deeply with "seven"

iroh is convinced that he can ask taylor to pop over for a nice cup of jasmine tea because he doesn't quite grasp how insanely popular she actually is, but unbeknownst to zuko, who scoffs whenever iroh mentions it because "there's no way", iroh is actually in contact with taylor because when she was just starting out she got sick before a concert and iroh have her a tea that helped her maintain her voice and get her back on track and he's been on a group chat with taylor ever since

[not-goldy]

I want to like the song but it’s lacking, I expected so much more from something touted as an RnB song. That’s the 90s baby in me. He didn’t even write it so there is that too. Maybe it will grow on me.

The video though is fun, he dies when lonely and he dies when he is in a relationship and wakes up in the end next to himself, as in in the end the best relationship you have is with yourself maybe? also with the first things he does as a couple in the flat look so much like they Jikook part of Life goes on, so domestic.

I hope he hasn’t caught feelings for anyone in an unrequited love situation/just friends situation (this doesn’t have to be JM it could literally be anyone) as that is a horrible experience. He deserves to be happy, hopefully this is a song he liked and recorded, which is what I’ve seen he has said, and there is no deeper meaning. He’s probably lonely?

RnB is a stretch its more Pop to me but I'm no music connoisseur.

Yes. It will grow on you.

At a 1st listen I thought it's a bop. Usually BTS songs in recent years save for a few have had to grow on me but this song is an instant hit. Might not be for everyone and I wish he'd enunciated better but overall it's enjoyable I love it.

Not sure what he tried to do with Layover but I'll add this to my Playlist and listen to it not just out of obligation to stream and support him but because I genuinely love it.

I think the era of he didn't write this and that needs to come to an end. Just because he didn't write it don't mean he owns no property in the song. He chose to put this song into the universe he could have overlooked it and went with something else entirely if it didn't resonate with him- I'll discuss this in another post

Well that's what we've been saying though isn't it? The whole one sided unrequited love trope has been peddled by me and a few sane vminers for years and I'm glad yall can see now how we aren't far off with it.

He does deserve to be happy and he deserves someone who loves the way he loves, someone who reciprocates his feelings and want what he wants- unfortunately that's neither Jimin nor Jennie sorry. I will die on this hill yall can hate me all you want don't care.

Yes. I suppose you can interpret this as him definitely feeling lonely, being surrounded by lovers, lowkey hating on them like the Wednesday that he is and finding that love finally however finding himself amongst a sea of chaos and failed relationships as if he's too late to the party. Everything is falling apart and the landscape has changed the energy is toxic- could be a metaphor for the reality of life, love is not all that, and we often over romantize that which we don't have. Love won't save you. You have to work on yourself. A man in the mirror type situation.

Or....

It's just a metaphor for gay love rocks hets suck🤣

Yall know I was gonna go there 😹😹😹

I'm gonna run yall out of town with this one

[up-to-some-good]

Fifteen

Some pre-relationship baby Jily for this Era. Written for @cruelsummer-ficfest era 4.

Ship: Jily

Song: Fifteen (Taylor's Version)

'Cause when you're fifteen,

Somebody tells you they love you

You're gonna believe them

And when you're fifteen...

Lily huffed a laugh as she wiped her nose with her sleeve. It was the third time this week that she'd had to disappear into the Prefect's bathroom to cry. It was getting a bit ridiculous, but the term had been nightmarish and didn't seem to be getting better.

First, she had made a fool of herself at the Quidditch match between Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, proudly painting her cheeks with Hufflepuff colours after her date with their captain, Graham Porter, the previous weekend. She'd told all her fellow fifth years about their date, and how excited she was for the next one, only to watch him fly off the pitch after their win, and pull Gemma Warwick into a kiss.

After that fiasco, she had struggled to study and had gone into her Divination OWL completely unprepared. She didn't particularly want to take the subject further, but she didn't need a bad grade on her record, especially with the rising anti-muggleborn ideation.

Then there was Severus, who had spat a slur in her face and destroyed 8 years of friendship. She had really believed him when he'd told her he cared about her and didn't care about blood status, and now she was left feeling like a fool after her revealed his true colours. It didn't help that James Potter had been there to egg him on, nor that the rest of Gryffindor tower had heard their argument when Severus came begging for her forgiveness. She was constantly reminded by whispers and gossips that she'd lost her best and only friend.

A loud knock stirred her from her thoughts before the door opened and James Potter walked in.

"Occupied, Potter. And you shouldn't be in here, anyway. Prefects only."

He smiled sheepishly.

"Remus told me the password," he said as he moved to sit next to her on the floor. "And I know I shouldn't be in here, but I needed to catch you alone."

She sighed and leaned her head back against the wall.

"Out with it, then," she responded. "What do you need to talk to me about so urgently?"

"I wanted to apologise," he said simply.

Her head snapped over to look at him, eyes wide and surprised.

"I'm sorry, Evans," he continued. "I've been an asshole to you and to Snape, and you didn't deserve it. I'm also sorry for asking you out the other day, even as a joke. It was unkind and inappropriate. I've tried to apologise to Snape too for the incident by the lake, but he won't let me get a word in. Which is fair, I guess. It's not like I've ever had something kind to say to him before. But I'm babbling, and you don't need to hear all that, so I'm gonna shut up now. I'm sorry, is the point."

There was a long pause as she thought over his words. James shifted uncomfortably, twisting his hands together while she kept staring at him.

"Why now?" she asked eventually. "Why apologise now, after five years of knowing us?"

He scratched the back of his neck and ran a hand through his hair before answering.

"It's a number of things, really. First is that both McGonagall and Remus gave me an earful last week, which made me sit and think about my actions properly. I know I should think before acting, but at least I'm getting closer. Second is that I realised I'm turning into the kind of person I claim to hate, and I don't want to be that. I know we're only 15 and we have time to grow, but I don't want to start in the wrong place. I want to be better than this. And..."

He drifted off at the last point and looked away from her.

"And?" she prompted gently.

"And I really do like you, and I've noticed you sitting alone at mealtimes, and only sitting with Abigail from Hufflepuff in class, and I don't think it's fair that you don't have anyone else. I know you're probably avoiding sitting with me, but that means you don't get to sit with Marlene or Dorcas or Mary or even Remus and Sirius, who I know you're friends with. I don't want to be the reason you don't have friends. I'd much rather be one of them. I care about you."

"Oh."

He got even more twitchy, if it was possible, and began to stand up to leave before she caught his arm.

"Thank you," she said. "For the apology and for caring about me. I appreciate it."

"Any time, Evans."

He started crying walking towards the door, hands stuffed in his pockets and head down.

"I'll see you at lunch?" she called out to him.

He paused for a moment and turned back, half smiling at her.

"Yeah, Evans," he responded quietly. "See you at lunch."

He turned away again, reaching for the door handle before she stopped him again.

"And, James?"

He paused, but didn't respond, looking at her with his head tilted slightly.

"Call me Lily."

He smiled properly then, a grin lighting up his whole face.

"You got it."

[daz4i]

okay trigger warning for this WHOLE ASK for depictions of abuse. physical and mental was thinking about ur post critiquing depictions of mori abusing dazai while i was doing my dishes and honestly i have to respectfully disagree with you, although only slightly. first off i'd like to establish that i think the popular depiction of mori's abuse, where he hurts dazai with no reason, pattern, or logic, is wrong. i'll agree with you there. but i do think there is some textual evidence for a more sinister manipulative form of abuse. i think it plays out when you observe dazai's relationship with akutagawa in the dark era. people tend to forget, i think, that almost all of dazai's career in the mafia was played out as he was a child. hell, when dazai leaves the mafia, he's barely legally of age in most countries. no matter how smart anyone is, a large portion of how you behave as a child is learned behavior. personally, i believe it makes sense that dazai's form of training and punishment for akutagawa would mirror how mori trained him. no, mori doesn't hit him for no reason, or torture him just for fun. But he would, say, put dazai in a seemingly impossible harmful situation and force him to escape with no help. He would hit dazai if he failed his mission, or gave an incorrect answer to a problem, or so on. If this isn't true, at least to some extent, then why would dazai use such methods on akutagawa? there are other options but i don't particularly like them. if dazai treats akutagawa the way he does because it's the objectively logical thing to do, then that feeds into asagiri's abuse apologism and i will be DAMNED if i let him have that. but if it's what dazai thinks is logical to do, independent of his situation, then that plays into the adultification of dazai during the mafia. HE WAS A KID! HE WOULD HAVE BEEN GOING TO SECONDARY SCHOOL IN JAPAN. HE PROBABLY WOULD HAVE STILL BEEN IN HIGH SCHOOL (sorry american moment). i don't like to believe in the "naturally cruel and evil dazai just wants to hurt people no matter what" because it refuses to acknowledge the tragedy of his life. plus! I think that's mori's whole goal! Is to adultify dazai! He never wants dazai to be viewed as he really is, a kid who's lost and mentally ill, because he'll lose one of his best assets. and like i guess you could pass his treatment of akutagawa off as his untold backstory but again he's being taught by mori for like a few years before he trains akutagawa. why wouldn't he adopt his training methods?? idk its just my personal thoughts.

hi! first of all thank you for being respectful :)

i do think you raise some great points! however, like you disagree with my take, i respectfully disagree with yours 🙏

when it comes to akutagawa, dazai could've learned this behavior from. well. literally anyone. it doesn't even have to be his own first hand experience that he inflicts on ryuu, it could be something he observed, either by someone else in the mafia, in his unmentioned backstory, or even like. in media really. i don't think he'd think this is the most logical conclusion, either, this is the part i agree with you the most - he was just a kid, he didn't know much better, even if he and mori thought he did

speaking of, the reason i don't think mori abused him, is because well. i don't think this would work on dazai? like. if he hates pain as much as he claims, i feel like if you physically punish him, he will simply leave. nothing really kept him in the mafia, as he told odasaku, so if things become too much for him, he would leave (we can also see that bc mori crossed a line - with odasaku - dazai severed all contact with him, burned his coat etc), and i think mori knows that

it's BECAUSE mori drives him to grow up so fast that i think he'd try to appeal to dazai's intelligence and logic (even when it's flawed due to how young he is) rather than basic instincts you'd use to train an animal.

mori in general doesn't strike me as a particularly (physically) violent individual. even when he kills, he does so with a clean cut to the throat. would he really use such methods, when he would have an easier time and better results if he used mind games? (also like, why would he physically hurt dazai? it'd just make him perform worse)

the thing i can maybe get behind is the "putting him in impossible situations" part, bc mental manipulation might've taken place there, tho i don't think he needed to do it often. yes dazai is a kid but his morals are askew enough to go along with mori's plans with no argument, so why would mori even NEED to abuse him, yknow?

that's how i see things at least. you don't have to agree ofc, we can both read the same story and come to wildly different conclusions, and that's great :)

i'm glad you have your own take on this and your own interpretation of mori and his relationship with dazai, so please don't take this as me correcting you or something, just sharing my own view 🙏

[sendmyresignation]

I didn't finish Girls to the Front partly bc I got distracted but partly bc I heard a few other people saying it felt biased or lacking a further critical analysis, I'm curious it it references any of the women who were involved in DC hardcore or hardcore in general, re the books assertion that hardcore is overly technical and masculine point thay you alluded to in your tags. I know that it was still a very male dominated scene but the continued way that some people act like the women who were there didn't matter or aren't worth discussing has always irked me, and I'm curious if you had thoughts

sorry, i just got the time to answer this! i wanted to be able to give some quotes so it didn't look like i was pulling anything out of my ass. but yeah, so while the book does occasionally mention women in hardcore, Marcus has this rhetorical strategy where she brings them up, but not without first diminishing their existences and then dismissing their contributions.

There's reasons for this, I think, actually. One is that she really wants to sell this idea that punk was more influenced by women in the 70s and then, suddenly hardcore happened and the "macho-ism" of hardcore meant that the 80s lacked the previous generations female presence: "its penchant for louder-faster-harder performances and frenetic slam dancing were catnip for boys anxious to blow off adolescent steam... [the mosh pits] drove most girls to the sidelines". This is true... but only to a certain extent and is also a generalization, the other thing is I think she just reallllly wants to make riot grrls this supreme influence on women in the 90s, like there were sooo few women in DC (not out front, not as personalities, as she quotes from Jen Smith). But, by writing off the entirety of the 80s, she loops hardcore and posthardcore together?? like rev summer bands were explicitly challenging the violence and the "hard" rhetoric with vulnerability- spiritually v connected to riot grrl. and, ofc, rev summer was conceptualized by amy pickering! like she is directly responsible for not just the term but is herself the catalyst (Marcus says: "The scene's previous golden age... was what Fire Party's Amy Pickering had then dubbed Revolution Summer" which I feel removes a lot of her involvement, esp when Marcus criticized the fact Fire Party rehearsed religiously for months before performing live, therefore they weren't a part of the summer itself and also stood in contrast to the Olympia-riot grrl values of anyone-can-play diy). She also, in an attempt to re-enforce this riot grrl linage into The Canon excludes women in DC who weren't direct inspirations on riot grrl (so for example, Chalk Circle is mentioned a hell of a lot in these histories bc she was a mentor for Olympia grrls after moving to Cali, wrote a precursor zine that a lot of riot grrls read, and was in a band with Kathleen Hanna, Holly Rollers always gets mentioned bc of Juliana Luecking, etc) but Pickering and others gets left out bc she's an imperfect role model (wanted her band to be seen outside the paragram of gender, she worked at Dischord, booked shows, was friends with most of the hardcore scene). Unsurprisingly, then, Marcus v. conveniently leaves out the black women in DC; Pickering's band included drummer Nicky Thomas (who is literally never named in the book, only Pickering is mentioned when talking about Fire Party which i find particularly egregious) and their first show was dedicated to Toni Young of Red-C and Dove who were legit hardcore bands.

She also is weirdly inconsistent about the contributions of female instrumentalists (that idea of personalities...); again, the members of Fire Party outside their vocalist are never mentioned, Unwound is briefly offhandedly namedropped but Sarah Lund's name never appears, Christina Billotte is mentioned and quoted when she's involved in riot grrl (Autoclave-era; later she would grow distant from the DC meetings) but is only passingly mentioned when Slant 6 is formed and none of her bandmates are named, Maria Jones is name dropped as a significant presence in DC because of the Holly Rollers connection but none of the other bands she was in are shared, including the all-girl, all openly queer Broken Siren, I could go on and on and on. Unless you were a frontwoman or directly involved in riot grrl, you were not relevant enough for Marcus to care about, which I find frustrating. who gives a fuck about female vocalists when the "technical" nature of guitar or drums makes them much more gender-locked positions in rock music? again, there's also a divergence about proficiency, as if attempting to perform complex, serious music was like.... giving into the masculine musical culture? which i find incredibly essentialist and insulting to women invested in their craft. Ultimately I find Marcus incapable of adequately accounting for the variety of women and their reasoning for being in a band during this period and it does a disservice to the history to simply pretend any woman not Doing It Correctly is worth forgetting or dismissing. so, hopefully that answers your question lmao. id still recommend girls to the front, if just because it presents riot grrl pretty unedited and the timeline is super helpful when dealing with a very fragmented small subculture and seeing that it gets preserved. but MAN did a lot of the analysis get on my nerves lmao

[twinkboimler]

🍄💾♻️ (hi this is margot ❤️)

hii!!! thanks!

🍄Describe your wip/one of your wips in the format of “___ + ___=___” Place Your Hand In Mine is Academy Era!Bones + Rom-Com tropes = a hot fucking mess created out of Bones' self-destructive tendencies and his disgust in any of that sappy bullshit

💾What is your document of your wip/ a wip called? (not the stories actual title but what you’ve saved it as) "Eoom + AOSR" which is short-hand for some discord servers, since the doc was originally created to hold fics written for people/events in said servers. I tend to just... throw all my shorter fics into one document until any of them get longer than 30k and then I finally separate them out. But I use headings and titles like crazy so it's y'know... an organized mess at least

♻️A scrapped idea for your current WIP For a little bit, I considered ending chapter 2 of Place Your Hand In Mine with Bones catching Jim lying about his plans for the evening when he looks out the window and spots Jim with Gaila. I decided to cut the idea because the tone didn't really feel right and I thought it would be a stretch that Bones would see that and not immediately put 2 and 2 together about who's been writing him those secret admirer notes. I'll put the original ending to chapter 2 under the cut so you can compare it to the actual ending if anyone's interested!

CUT ENDING TO CHAPTER 2

Leonard’s cut off by Jim standing suddenly. He watches as Jim finishes scarfing down the contents of his bowl before Jim steps over Leonard’s legs towards the sink, placing his bowl inside. “Sorry, Bones,” he starts, and something deep in Leonard’s gut twists painfully. 

“Let me guess—another meet-up with Gaila that you forgot about.”

Jim seems to freeze, his brows furrowing together. “No. I’ve got a group project to work on for my Command and Control class. I forgot we were meeting at the main library tonight.”

Jim looks like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Leonard wonders if Jim is considering whether or not to stay. 

Leonard sighs, shaking his head. “No, no, it’s fine. Your courses are more important than some stupid reality television.”

“Bones, I—”

“Seriously, you’re fine,” Leonard says, flashing him a smile that doesn’t quite feel like it reaches his eyes. “And thank you for dinner. It’s delicious.”

Jim bows his head a little, the way he always does when Leonard gives him a compliment, and it makes Leonard feel all warm.

But then Jim starts to shove his shoes on, grabbing his bag from by the door and a coat, and Leonard is surprised by how quickly the wave of disappointment crashes over him.

“I won’t be gone for too long,” Jim says. “See you, Bones.”

Leonard can’t get his throat to unstick in time for him to give Jim a goodbye in response. He hears the sound of Jim’s footsteps grow fainter and fainter as he walks away until Leonard is left only listening to the silence.

Leonard can’t bear it. He turns on the show with the wedding dresses, just so that the noise will fill the room.

He’s finished his second episode when he stands to take his bowl to the sink. He stretches, his joints cracking as he straightens. He carries his bowl to the sink, filling a glass up with water while he’s over there.

He returns to the couch. His thoughts wander. He thinks about how it felt to have Jim’s face smushed against his arm, listening to Jim’s soft snores. Leonard swallows thickly, then turns away from the couch towards the window.

He walks over to it and glances out at the road several levels below. The sun has set but the street lights make the people walking on the sidewalks visible to his eye. He scans over the groups of people, looking at the men walking their dogs and the people chatting on benches below. The weather is nice this evening, still chilly but not wet and rainy. 

Leonard starts to turn away when something—someone—catches his eye. On a bench across the road outside their apartment, Leonard spots a jacket he recognizes and a woman with green skin—

Oh.

He stares, taking in the scene below him, making sure it really is them. Jim is gesturing emphatically, moving his hands in such big movements that even Leonard can see that Jim must be agitated. Leonard watches as Gaila reaches out and puts a hand on Jim’s shoulder.

Leonard feels like he’s been doused with ice water. 

He knows that whatever is going on, Gaila isn’t cheating on Christine. He knows that Gaila wouldn’t do that, that Jim has a whole bunch of frustrating traits and tendencies but he wouldn’t do that to his friends. They’re just having a simple conversation with each other outside.

So, why does Leonard feel betrayed?

He turns away quickly before either person can look up at the window and catch a glimpse of him. He’s not interested in having that conversation with Jim.

Jim’s lying to Leonard now. It’s hard to stop himself from feeling sick at the realization.

If Jim feels he can’t talk to Leonard anymore, then things are truly dire. Leonard drops himself back down on the couch, staring at the wall, staring at nothing in particular. 

Jim doesn’t trust him anymore. He’s missed his chance with Jim, he realizes. He never had a chance with Jim at all.