#i wish i was better at confrontation and i wish i felt less alone

[opheliac]

it really doesn't feel like there's any safe spaces for me to actually take apart and work through what happened to me as a child and a teenager, and it hurts me so much because i want to get over it but i cannot do it alone.

[targaryenmarvel]

Fallin' All In You - Wanda Maximoff x Reader

Summary: An eventful evening in the park changes your life for the better after meeting the Maximoff twins.

Warnings: None

Word count: 1,262

Hey guys! I've been too busy with work to finish the next part, but I didn't want to leave you without anything. Hopefully, now that things have slowed down, I can finish writing and post soon. Anyways, enjoy!

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The breeze blew past your face, tousling your hair as you purposefully moved back and forth on the swings. Besides you, the other kids did the same, swinging ferociously to reach the highest peak, a competition among you all. Though the rest of the kids were older, you were never one to back away from a challenge.

From a bench not too far sat your teenage babysitter, Leah, flirting with a boy while occasionally looking in your direction. You didn't mind; it gave you the liberty to do as you wished.

A grin adorned your face, exhilarated with adrenaline as you went higher, and you felt invincible being on top. From there, you could see a couple of kids racing, others climbing the dome, a mother tending to her crying child, and a lone girl in the sandbox clad in a pink Lilo & Stitch shirt with matching shorts. 

The girl skillfully pressed on the dry sand, molding it into a tower shape, and then added water from a bucket to set the structure. You noticed the top of the tower. She proceeded to make another tower before working on creating a wall. You saw one of the towers become lopsided and internally screamed, waiting for it to topple over, but before it could fall, the girl expertly used her hands to stabilize the structure. 

Suddenly, the swings seemed less fun. The excitement redirected at the prospect of joining the girl in her project. 

A boy on the seesaw thought the same as he slid down with a devilish smirk, suddenly interested in the sandbox. That's when you noticed him, striding with a wicked intent toward the lone girl. You immediately recognized him as John Walker, a red-faced blonde boy who terrorized the other kids. Occasionally, he even stole your toys and went scot-free, his coddling mother dismissively saying, "Oh, they're just kids." 

You were tired of him pushing everyone around; you wouldn't allow it this time. With resolve, you break your steady swing to slow down enough to jump off. When you did, you landed on all fours, and from a distance, you could hear Leah telling you to be careful. You ignored her as you ran to the sandbox, where the boy was already lifting his foot to knock the castle down. You could see the girl staring at him, startled, like she had just seen a ghost. You saw the tears welling in her eyes as his foot made contact with the castle. Red covered your vision as you lifted your hands and pushed his chest with all your force, and he tumbled down.

"Leave her alone." You kicked at the sand, sending it flying atop the boy. "I'm tired of you picking on us. Someone has to teach you a lesson."

You raised your fist, ready to pummel the boy, recalling the karate lessons you'd begged your mother to let you take. Before your fist could connect with his face, a cold hand held your wrist, stopping your attack. "Y/N, what are you doing?" asked Leah.

You smiled at her coyly, "Nothing. We were playing, right?" You excused, using the same line he used when adults caught him. He mirrored his victim's assertions, nodding, dazzled, and dumbfounded by your confrontation. "See, I was just teachin' him a few karate moves. We weren't actually fighting."

Leah looked at you two suspiciously before releasing your hand. "You shouldn't be playing like that. You could get hurt. No more, okay?" 

"Okay, I promise," you said innocently, crossing your fingers behind your back. The teenage girl, eager to return to the boy, left without another word. 

You watched her leave, only addressing the boy when she was out of earshot. "Go," you command, and he scampered away. Only then did you turn to face the round cheek, freckled, brunette girl. She looked at you, her eyes sparkling in awe.

"Are you okay?"

The girl remained quiet, mouth agape and gaze unwavering. You considered calling Leah over, concerned for the girl. Maybe she was in shock; you remember hearing the term in your favorite cartoon. Before you could, another figure stopped before you, bending towards the girl.

"Wanda, what happened? Are you okay?" asked the boy, winded from running.

"Pietro," she whined lowly, embarrassed by the boy. "I'm fine."

You stood there observing the interaction, intrigued by the bickering. When he finally acknowledged your presence, you were met with a blue-eyed boy with similar features to the girl.

The boy looked you up and down, flashing your crooked smile.

"Hi, I'm Pietro," he motioned to the girl, "This is my sister Wanda. You are?"

You glanced between the two, settling on the beaming boy, as the girl shied away from the conversation by busying herself with the sand. Odd girl, you thought.

"Y/N. Nice to meet you." You returned the smile, taking in the charismatic boy. 

The boy-Pietro took your hand, bringing it to his lips, smirking goofily, and said, "Thank you for protecting my sister."

You suppressed the giggle, begging to erupt from your lips at his ridiculousness. Something told you the two of you would get along perfectly. Still, you fixed Pietro with a scowl, retrieving your hand to your side. You couldn't make it easy for him.

"Do you need help?" you asked Wanda, ignoring the boy as you focused on the girl rebuilding her castle. Wanda abruptly stopped, caught off guard by your interest. Most kids usually overlooked her presence the second they met Pietro, the more social twin.

Wanda flushed at the sudden attention, eyes bouncing between you two. Her mind screamed, "Yes," she would love to spend time with you, the girl who had bravely defended her. Her hero, you could say. But alas, she could not voice her thoughts, petrified with shyness.

Pietro's twin intuition flared, sensing his sister's distress at the offer. However, he wrongly assumed the reason for her state to be his sister's antisocial persona and not her newly found admiration for you.

The boy took it upon himself to relieve the forming awkwardness at Wanda's speechlessness. He searched until his eyes landed on a tall tree with a red ball stuck on the branches, and an idea formed.

"Let's leave Wanda to her sand castle. You can come and watch me climb that tree?"

"Huh?" You frowned at the boy, bewildered by the suggestion.

Pietro grinned, pointing to the upper branches. "Yeah, to get that ball. Then, we can play kickball with the other kids."

You craned your neck and glanced upwards, feeling your eyes bulge in surprise at the great height. "That's very high," you mused, and Pietro snorted.

"No, you're just a scaredy cat."

You jerked your head towards him, pride wounded by his implication of your character. You weren't a scaredy cat, and you would prove it. You glanced at Leah, still in her world. Oh, she was so getting fired, you thought. You returned your gaze to Pietro, fixing him with a glare.

"I am not, and I can climb farther than you!" You challenged, sprinting to the tree, and Pietro trailed behind. Wanda watched wary, glancing at their father, who was engaged in an intense phone conversation from afar.

Evidently, it wasn't the brightest idea for two kids to race up a tree without care. While an incredible runner, Pietro lacked agility and tripped on a branch, bringing you down with him. His foot landed at an awkward angle as he tumbled down, and you landed face-first on his elbow. Your mother, of course, fired Leah afterward. 

[invisiblerambler]

GO AHEAD AND CRUCIFY ME IN THE SQUARE

I think this season might be my favorite. Or favorite is the wrong word, it lives most closely to my heart. Before last week I would have said that about S2 and I LOVE season 2 it feels like a warm hug to me and I can rewatch almost any episodes any day of the week and it feels like a comfort.

Especially the back half of the season. The conversation Syd has with her dad about this being the thing and the conversation with Carmy under the table. Those represent a better part of my nature when I'm mostly concerned about the state of my career and what I hope to accomplish.

Season 3 though, and I acknowledge it could be biased towards where I am in my life right now, but season three hit me between the eyes. It's forced me to confront things frankly I didn't want to, but I think that's it's success.

The honesty with which it portrays someone so deep in grief and trauma and the ambition that intersects both of those things.

I cannot begrudge anyone who finds it tedious, but unfortunately healing from trauma is tedious and boring and just as awful as it looks from the outside sometimes.

Living through a period of time where the thoughts in your head are consuming and distorting reality to the point they are with Carmy this season, I have never had words to describe that experience.

That is a gift this show has given me, a way to communicate things that I always felt my words fell short of reaching.

I wouldn't wish the level of trauma Carmy has experienced on anyone, but I wish this season garnered more empathy and less contempt.

I have frequently been described as high-functioning, resilient, and well-adjusted, but like all three of these seasons of The Bear have portrayed in stark relief, no amount of achievement can undo what you do not want to confront.

It's a cliche possibly, but the ways in which Carmy is portrayed as having it all together while not at all... A fine dining restaurant is the perfect place to not have shit together while outwardly pretending.

The messiness and utter raw emotion of it was painfully endearing. I didn't watch this season and see a monster, I saw someone desperately trying to figure out how he can feel better, and everyone around him failing to realize the depth of his suffering.

This season is so human. I saw someone say that this was a cooking show about grief and now it's a grief show about cooking, and a part of me wants to yell THE COOKING WAS A TRICK SUCKERS. IT WAS ABOUT GRIEF THE WHOLE TIME which feels painfully obvious, but based on the reactions, I think a lot of people were not expecting such a grief forward season.

I understand this show was a big swing and was not giving you almost any of what most people wanted or expected, but for me my favorite art is when I get the thing I least expected. And that was painfully true of this season. I didn't want one of my favorite and most painfully tender shows to present me with a season that laid bare a lot of things I had intended to hide away from, but I am better for it.

Even if you didn't like the season, I hope you came away with a sense of empathy for those who have experienced trauma as layered and ongoing as Carmy.

I have for a long time struggled with the idea that I was a perfect victim. I outwardly made the correct choices, and mostly acted in ways that turned my suffering inwards not outwards. I did not feel afforded the luxury in life of taking it out on other people.

Watching this season felt like a window into my id. The version of me that maintained a high level of function, but indulged in many of my worst impulses, not turning them inward and burying them down. The contrast of the way Syd reacts to the trauma of being left alone on friends and family and throughout the renovation vs Carmy feels like a near perfect study in the contrast of expectations for male and female trauma victims.

Syd keeps it all inside and punishes only herself, because to do anything else would sabotage the career she has worked so hard to build. It feels like an obvious statement to make, but feels so much less obvious when the only place it feels like the pain can go is inward.

The panic attack at the end of the season is the physical manifestation of her body no longer being able to contain all the pain she's turned inward. It has to go somewhere and there's no control over when that happens.

I'm not sure if I am simply drawing obvious conclusions everyone else has already come to, but I wanted to reflect on how human this show really is. It is beautiful and artistic and a work of art but it is also messy and human and realistic in ways that set my teeth on edge.

I understand if season 3 wasn't the full course meal you were expecting, but I hope you'll find compassion and empathy for those who felt it to be a slightly abrasive but ultimately satisfying Tuesday surprise.

[myouicieloz]

Hi! I just found your blog and I’m looking forward to your works. Could I request a Seulgi angst fic; where you and Seulgi have been in a happy, loving, fulfilling, committed relationship for the past 3 years, but one day when she came back from practice with the girls you two got into a heated argument about how she’s always canceling dates with you because work related things come up that she “can’t miss” and she ends up bringing up something that you had confided in Her about awhile ago and uses it against you; to which she immediately regrets and tries to take back and can you take it from there? Thank you! I look forward to it:)

Missing you

Kang Seulgi x reader

Warnings: toxic!relationship, angst (dw it’s all good now)

Word count: 3.7k

Notes: hi!! sorry for taking long <3. I kind of struggled to think of a motive of them arguing bc it kept getting too dark (as in they wouldn’t be able to get past this lol) and I kinda wanted a happy ending. I hope this is to your liking!! Kisses mwah mwah.

Your gaze flew to the clock for the 30th time in a spam of five minutes, making you sigh in defeat. Seulgi had promised you she’d meet you at your favorite restaurant for dinner, as a way to make up to you for being so busy over the past weeks. Yet there you were, sitting alone with a glass of bitter wine for over two whole hours before you finally gave up and went home, realizing she wouldn’t come. Again.

Babe <3

Hey baby, rehearsals are going up until late since we still have so much to work on

I won’t make it to dinner. Sorry.

Next week, though? I’ll make it up to you. I promise.

I love you

You got into your apartment just as her message lit up your phone. You threw it over the sofa, preparing yourself a long bath to try to relax. You took a deep breath before entering the warm water, the bubbles and the silence easing your tensed muscles. You tried not to think about your girlfriend or your relationship, knowing it’d only make you even more upset, but your thoughts didn’t seem to let you rest.

You and Seulgi loved each other, you knew that much. You’ve never loved her any less in those three years you’ve been dating, but it pained you to see how much you’ve drifted apart lately. You felt like you were the only one trying to spend time with her, and it wasn’t like you weren’t busy yourself: being an intern in one of Seoul’s top hospitals while studying for residency was tiring and difficult, specially since you’ve always been a bit behind your colleagues, having to push yourself harder than the most to simply be at their level. Still, you always made sure to make some time for Seulgi. Why couldn’t she do the same? Were you not important to her?

Those thoughts made you sigh, your body immersed in the water until it went limp and the water grew cold. Part of you wished you could be somewhat more imposing: demand more from her, confront the woman over your issues, telling her how you felt. You couldn’t, though. You were too weak for that. Which was the reason you dragged yourself to bed, rolling over to set your alarm on your phone before allowing your body to be dragged by sleep.

It’s ok.

Next time, then

Gnight love

Seulgi’s reply came hours later, although you were fast asleep.

Sweet dreams, dearest.

-

To say you were having a bad day was a euphemism. Your preceptor had given you the biggest, shittiest lecture over nothing (so what if you couldn’t get the stupid procedure done at the very first try? He had no right to scream at you to get out of the OR like that, let alone yell at your face for over half an hour about how dumb and unprepared you were, compared to others. Preposterous piece of crap). You nearly fell down the stairs on your way to lunch and, to make it better, your umbrella broke, making you run all the way home after being dropped at the bus stop to try to get less soaked. It didn’t work, and you entered your place with chattering teeth and the feeling of the wind carved deep in your bones. Your body was trembling so much from the cold and the stress, you dropped your keys twice before you managed to open the door, finally sighing in relief.

That relief, however, ended just as you spotted your girlfriend’s silhouette leave your kitchen and enter your living room, smiling as if she hadn’t fucked up hard by leading you on for so long.

“Jesus baby, you’re soaked.” She frowned, giving you a peck on the lips. Your body went rigid at her touch, exhausted from everything, which made Seulgi confused. She was finally able to make some time and come see you, so why weren’t you happy?

You simply murmured something along the lines of hello and so nice to see you, before hurrying to your room to get rid of the wet clothes that clung to your body. You took the hottest shower of your life, trying to wash all the discomfort away, which didn’t work in the slightest.

You loved Seulgi so much it hurt, but the last thing you wanted for the day was to see her. You felt drained, your body ached, and you so desperately wanted to hide under your sheets and cry yourself to sleep. You didn’t want to talk about your day—about anything, specially not to her. It’d demand too much energy to explain what was going on with you over the past few weeks, since you never seemed to properly talk to each other, anymore. You had no energy for that.

And you’ve always sucked at communicating, anyway.

You forced yourself to leave your room, dragging your feet in tiredness, and found Seulgi setting up the table for two. You sat down, still silent, and watched as she put some Tteokbokki for herself.

“I’ve already eaten at the hospital.” You told her, returning her stare with a shrug. Seulgi sighed at your pettiness; perhaps you did get mad at her for canceling on you on the prior week, unlike you’d told her. And the week before that. And-

Ok. She might deserve a bit of your cold shoulder. But you simply had to understand her: she was working so hard with the girls to prepare for their comeback, and there were still many things to be adjusted. Their expected date was approaching, and you’ve always been so comprehensive. Sure, she knew you often masked your feelings or simply dismissed them to try to please others, but she’d asked you about it so many times. If something was making you uncomfortable, you’d sure tell her. Right?

“So,” She grunted, adjusting herself in the chair. “How was your day?”

“It was fine, thanks.”

“Okay.” Seulgi murmured, not touching her food either. She was beginning to get irritated at your distance now. Sure, she knew being a doctor was exhausting and time-consuming, but it wasn’t like she wasn’t having one hell of a week, either. Her fingers twitched under the table, and she no longer stood the awkward silence between you. Rolling her eyes, she added, “Are you just going to be a bitch all night? Because I got here straight from practice, I’m tired as fuck and the last thing I want is for you t—“

“What are you doing here, then, Seulgi?” You interrupted her, feeling the anger rise on yourself too. “Don’t you have rehearsals and recordings to be too busy with? Or should I just be so fucking grateful that my girlfriend decided to grace me with her company? Am I not paying enough attention to your liking?” You usually tried your best to not be rude to others, keeping your sarcastic thoughts to yourself, but your sudden anger flared up and forged a cloud over your mind, making it hard to see clearly through it. “Should we call the others, then? The girls you spend all fucking day with?”

Seulgi rose from the table, her face heating up at your words and suggestions. You played low at that, you both knew it, but now you’ve gotten her way too pissed to think about consequences.

“What the fuck, Yn? What’s gotten into you?” She screams, leaning forward so you two were face to face, “I know it was not ideal at all to skip our dinner.” Multiple ones, you both knew it, but neither pointed it out loud. “But you know I can’t miss work. Please understand.”

Seulgi was just so mad and frustrated. Her times with you were always stress-relieving to her, but lately all you’ve been doing is either argue about minor stuff or simply not talk at all. It was taking a toll on her when it shouldn’t, not with her comeback so close and her stress levels already escalating. It wasn’t good for you either, with your crazy work routines and weekly exams at the hospital. She knew that.

But you couldn’t seem to make it work.

“What’s gotten into me?” You stood up yourself, too, towering over her. Since you were always so sweet and patient, Seulgi would often forget how much taller you were— in fact, it was one of the things she first noticed when you first met; it had gotten her attention instantly. She hated it now, though— how small it made her feel. “What’s gotten into me is that it seems like I don’t even have a fucking girlfriend anymore! You ignore me all the time like I’m just some friend and not someone who matters! I don’t even know what you’re doing half of the time, with God knows who.” You threw your hands in the air, exasperated.

Her expression turned into a scowl, and she rolled her eyes, palms curling into fists to shake the urge of grabbing you by the shoulders and shaking your insecurities away. Seulgi hated when you implied such things. You were the love of her life, and she’d never, never cheat on you, no matter how distant you were. But you were (deeply) insecure, and she knew that. She was also so, so enraged and stressed.

“Jesus, why are you always so fucking dramatic?” she was quick to snap back, defensive. “Acting like I’m going to leave you for the first person I see in the stree…” Seulgi’s words died on her mouth, immediately realizing the power of her words, making both of you gasp. She tried to reach out to you, but you pushed your chair roughly to get away from her.

Your body went rigid, countless memories of you crying to her flagged your mind. You’ve confessed to her many times about how much it bothered you to not have her around as much. You missed her deeply, and even though you trusted her completely, your mind was always playing tricks on you — not only about her, but with everything: how you weren’t enough at University, always behind your friends in grades; not interesting enough to make long last friendships, as you often saw in big groups of friends; not pretty or talented enough for your girlfriend, who was constantly around so many amazing people. That’s just how your mind worked 24/7; constantly wondering.

And now, Seulgi made sure to tell you just how much she hasn't forgotten any of that. Any of the things that made you deeply insecure.

“Get out.” You told her, hugging yourself to hide the urge of running straight to her arms.

Seulgi took a step forward, but it only made you back away twice as much. “Baby, I’m so sorry… listen, I—“

“I said get out!” You screamed this time, the tears you were fighting so hard to contain rolling freely on your face.

All the sensations you were suppressing all week erupted, boiling over your surface as you brushed past the hallway to try to get to your room, to the bathroom, anywhere small were you could be confined and finally let it all go. You were straight up sobbing now, your body hot from moving roughly alongside your heavy breathing. You were so sick of everyhting. Work, your friends, her. Her words hurt, and all you wanted was to disappear. You didn’t quite feel your body as the tears clouded your eyes, and suddenly very light, delicate hands were lifting you up —you now realized you’d simply sunk in the middle of the hallway, hugging your knees as strong as you could— and guiding you to your bedroom. Seulgi helped you to get under the covers as she lay down beside you, careful to not overwhelm you even more. When the older woman saw you’d settled down a bit, she opened her arms, making you cling onto her immediately. You knew you shouldn’t, but it was so comforting, and you loved her so much… You’d allow yourself just that, only for a few moments.

“I-I don’t want to do this anymore.” you muttered against her neck, wetting her shirt with your tears. “I’m so tired, Seulgi. I can’t.”

You felt her tense before you for brief seconds before her soothing touches went on, kissing your forehead ever so gently— almost as if you were made of glass. You certainly felt like it, at the moment. Like you were a glass full of cracks, threatening to shatter.

“Shh, it’s ok.” She cooed, running her hands under your shirt to draw small circles on your bare back, as she knew it soothed you and made you sleep almost instantly. “You’re too tired right now. Sleep, ok? I’ll be here when you wake up, then we’ll talk.”

You didn’t like the idea of talking things out with Seulgi. It would be too tiring, and maybe, just maybe… you were postponing it for so long because you feared what the outcome would be.

You were too afraid to lose her. So you’d rather leave things as they were, no matter how broken and uncomfortable they might be.

Your eyes, however, were already closing on their own, the warmth of her body making it so easy to just give in and rest.

“Okay.” You whispered, hugging her closer. “Tomorrow.”

You fell into a sleep without dreams soon enough.

-

The first thing you noticed when you woke up was how messy the right side of the bed— Seulgi’s side was. You’d missed the wrinkled sheets and how it always looked like a hurricane had passed over your bed whenever she came over, from how much she moved in her sleep. It made you smile to yourself as you got up, bare feet on the ground, while you hesitantly looked around for her, too scared to call her name out loud and find her gone.

It wouldn’t be the first time she broke a promise, after all.

You’d forgotten how much all the little things with her made you happy.

“…Hello?” You asked— secretly relieved, at the sight of your girlfriend kneeling on the ground, little wrinkles adorning her face as she tried hard to shove too many clothes on your washing machine.

She looked up, startled by the sound of your voice, but quickly smiled. “Hi. Did you have a good sleep?” Seulgi sounded genuinely concerned, making you curse yourself silently for worrying her.

Are you ok? She wanted to ask you. Seeing you so distressed had gotten her so guilty and concerned. She hated to see you like this, and it killed her to know she was to blame. I care.

“Yeah, I did, thanks.” You shrugged it off, standing awkwardly at her sides. “You don’t have to do my laundry, you know.”

“Well, someone has to.” Seulgi scoffed, rolling her eyes as she finally managed to close the machine’s door, even if with a bit of an effort.

You opened your mouth, faking being offended while bringing your hands to your heart. “I was going to do it, okay? On…”

“Saturday.” You both finished, together. Saturdays were laundry day for you, though you rarely followed your schedule through. It made you smile, to know she remembered it, and you said nothing, trying to not break the nice moment you were having.

“So, do you want to have lunch? We can go out, if you’d like.” Seulgi suggested, her tone careful as she fidgeted the hem of her big sweatshirt.

You simply stared at her, confused. Lunch? Had you really slept for that long?

“You slept for 13 hours, babe.” She clarified, looking at your confused face, making you quickly check your phone to confim the truth: it was, indeed, nearly lunchtime.

You’ve never been so grateful to be on your day off as much as you did now, or else you would’ve sure missed your pre-rounds at the hospital.

“Oh, ok.” You answered, a bit ashamed for dozing out for so long. “Let’s have lunch, then.” You realized she must’ve been skipping work, too; which was why you added, frowning. “Don’t you have to be in the company? It’s ok if you do. I can wait until nigh—“

“Don’t worry about it.” Your girlfriend clarified, motioning for you to get ready. “Let’s just have lunch, ok?”

You took a deep breath, knowing what she meant; it was urgent for the two of you to sit, talk and solve things. Giving in, you followed her, changing from your pajamas and fixing your hair as she grabbed some of your clothes (that were too big on her, as always. she loved it.) to go out.

“Ok.”

-

You played with your hands, sitting in front of Seulgi at a local restaurant near your house as you waited for your food to come. The cozy atmosphere didn’t do much to easy your discomfort, and you tried hard to not bite your (already deeply bitten) nails off. Seulgi’s eyes were trained on you, making you feel as if hundreds of tiny needles were piercing your skin through her gaze. To your surprise, not once had she checked her phone, unlike all the times you’ve been together over the last few months. Instead, her sole attention was on you, like you dreamed of so many times in those last weeks.

Now, however, her current focus only makes you want to throw up, from the nerves of the situation.

“You haven’t been taking care of yourself.” She expressed, as a matter of fact. It was true, but her accusation made you defensive, eyes snapping to her as you took a deep breath.

You were tired of arguing, and this was one of your favorite places: you’d rather not cause a scene. “Seulgi.”

“Am I lying?” Your piercing gaze was enough for her to roll her eyes, hands up to show you she wasn’t looking for a fight either. “Ok, let’s not go there.” Her tone dropped an octave, “I just worry, ok? You seem to be having it pretty tough.”

She wasn’t pressuring you to say anything before the two of you actually discussed your issues— you knew it as much. It as just hard for you to express yourself, now even more to do so without crying. And you didn’t want to cry in front of her.

“This rotation has been tough, like I already knew it would be.” You told her, refusing to meet Seulgi’s eyes. “It’s ok, though. It’s nearly over, now. Things will get better, then.”

You’d talked about it before your rounds started, Seulgi remembered. Flashes of you, worried, flashed through her mind, with herself assuring you she’d be by your side to help you on each step of your journey.

The memory made her want to throw up, too.

“Look at me, baby.” You heard her say, yet you still refused to meet her eyes. Instead, you felt her hands holding yours, her touch firm. “Yn, look at me.”

You closed your eyes to prepare yourself for whatever was about to come, a few quiet moments amidst the storm of both of your minds. When you opened them, she was ready to welcome you. “I’m sorry, ok? I truly am so, so sorry for those last couple of weeks— hell, these couple of months. I’m such an idiot for leading you on like that and for not treating you like you deserve it. I love you, God, I fucking love you more than anything in this world, Yn, and I can’t stand the thought of losing you.” Her grip went tighter, but you didn’t care. You could only listen to her words. “I promise I’ll do better, to show you how much you matter to me. I’ll be here for you, just like you’ve always been, for me.” She murmured, taking your hands to your lips as she kissed them gently.

Little droplets of tears still threatened to fall from your eyes as your voice faltered, a bulge forming in your throat. You loved Seulgi and needed her like the air you breathed, and sure missed her every second of the day, when you weren’t together. But her distance had hurt you, deeply.

She was crying, too. You realized you’ve actually never seen her cry, in the 3 years you’ve been dating.

“Your distance really hurt.” You managed to voice it to her, between hiccups. “I-I felt like I was doing something wrong all the time.”

“You weren’t. You’d never, baby.” She reassured you, running her hands through your hair to get it out of your wet face. “It was my fault. You’re mine and I’m yours, ok? We’ll start over, and I’ll show you how much you matter to me. I won’t fuck up our relationship anymore.” She looked at you timidly, adding, “And I’m sorry for what I said yesterday, too. It was not my place to use something you confined at a moment like that. I was such a huge bitch.”

“It’s ok.” You muttered, though still hurt.

“No it’s not.” She exclaimed, serious. “It was horrible, and I’m deeply sorry for that. It’s not going to happen again. Ever.”

Instead of answering, you lunged forward, kissing her urgently— fuck the restaurant and etiquette. Seulgi kissed you with equal fervor, savoring your taste. God, she’d missed you so much.

“I love you.” You told her, smiling as you ended the kiss, leaning on the chair. She pouted, but opened a big smile as she saw yours. “And I don’t want us to end. We’ve been through so much. I want to be by your side, with anything that comes.”

“I love you more, Yn. We’ll be together, always. Nothing will fuck us up anymore. No rehearsals, recordings… nothing.” Her hands brushed your lips as she stared at your face, enamored, before adding. “Now tell me about everything I’ve missed. And I mean everything. Don’t save your words.”

You laughed at her, nodding as you quietly started from the beginning: you’ve told her every bit she missed, and Seulgi told everything about herself, too. You ate your food with content, exchanging every single moment with her until hours had passed, and you’ve decided to return home.

And as you walked in the park together, the windy breeze calmed your soul, and with your love by your side, you felt much, much better.

As it should always be.

[gatheringbones]

robert f. reid-pharr, from living as a lesbian, from Sister & Brother: Lesbians and Gay Men Write About Their Lives Together, 1994

["In 1985 Barbara Smith came like a fresh wind into Chapel Hill. She brought with her a vision of home unlike anything I ever had imagined. It was then that I began the process of being a lesbian. It is only recently that I began to understand lesbianism as a state of being that few of us ever achieve. To become lesbian one has to first be committed to the process of constantly becoming, of creatively refashioning ones humanity as a matter of course.

Coda

By becoming a lesbian, I have done nothing more nor less than become myself.

I had expected to end this piece with these words, forcing all of us, myself included, to reevaluate what it means to be labeled lesbian, gay, straight, bi, transgendered, asexual. And yet, this is not enough. For even as I recognize the difficulty of giving definition and meaning to our various identities, I also realize that as I struggle to lay claim to my lesbianism I am always confronted with the reality of my own masculinity, this strange and complex identity that I continue to have difficulty recognizing as privilege.

It was a Friday afternoon in September when I had my first bathhouse experience. I'm not sure what I expected, or wanted. In truth, I was compelled more than anything else by Samuel Delany's description in The Motion of Light in Water of his visit to the St. Mark's Baths in the early sixties. I thought that it would be exciting, that perhaps within this outlaws' territory I could throw off the stifling fears and anxieties that shape and constrain our lives, sexual and otherwise. I even felt that, given the name of the enterprise I was about to visit— "baths"— there had to be something intrinsically cleansing and healing about it.

Now I find myself asking if in the bathhouse— the most sacred of male enclaves, where my masculine body and affected macho style increase my worth in the sexual economy— I am still lesbian. Is it lesbianism that spills out of the end of my cock as bald-headed men with grizzled beards and homemade tattoos slap my buttocks and laugh triumphantly? Is it lesbianism that allows me to walk these difficult streets alone, afraid only that I will not be seen, accosted, "forced" into sexual adventure?

All my bravado, my will to adventure is caught up, strangely enough, with the great confidence I have gained from "The Lesbian." And yet, this confidence, this awareness of my own body, of my own independence, takes me to places where she dares not go. Perhaps then I am not a lesbian at all, but rather like a drag queen, by day a more or less effeminate, woman-loving gay man, by night a pussy, a buck, the despoiler of young men recently arrived from the provinces and the careful tutelage of their loving mothers. What I know for certain is that this self, this lesbian-identified gay man, is in constant flux. I live like a lesbian, as a lesbian, because I know no better way of life. Still, I live beyond her, in a province that continues to be reserved exclusively for men, all the while reaping the many fruits of sexual apartheid.

Me, I want to escape…. this dirty world, this dirty body. I never wish to make love again with anything more than the body.

Perhaps in my next life I will be done with these questions of identity altogether, will cherish fully the body that I am given, begin to see it neither as burden or weapon, but only as the vessel of my existence. Perhaps in my next life I will have given up finally this constant struggle to explain who I am not— not woman, not white, not straight, not you— and start to revel in the limitless of my boundaries. Perhaps each one of us will recapture that which has been lost, start again to accept and acknowledge the profound ambiguity and uncertainty of this existence. It is then and only then that we will find home.

In 1985 Barbara Smith came like a fresh wind into Chapel Hill."]

[red-bat-arse]

Just Date Someone Better!

*I don't do tag lists*

Eddie and Chrissy were friends, completely by accident. There was a late winter party with a few too many black out drunk basketball players that pushed the tipsy and sober crowd to migrate into the garage; Eddie made a snipe about pompoms and the mating rituals of high school preps that Chrissy, a little high, cackled at before asking him if his species did the same but on top of cafeteria tables, and they'd gone from there.

Sure, it was mainly based on having a weed buddy to talk shit about high school boys to, but hey, everyone started somewhere. The rumours about him had already paved the way, so when Chrissy asked him how many drinks it'd take before he would kiss Patrick Mckinney, he took the out and avoided the confrontation he always dreaded with new friends. And when Chrissy cried over him buying her Mcdonald's for dinner one day, he got to learn something about her that she kept close to her chest too.

Eddie was queer as a two dollar bill, and when he got comfortable with someone he didn't bother hiding it. It was no wonder that several weeks in his circle tripped Chrissy into figuring something important out about herself, granted the waterworks she burst into when she finally confided in him in late January were a touch less dramatic than his own coming out to Wayne, where he'd freaked out so bad he'd tripped and broken his nose. And then just being two queer kids getting through high school in Hawkins would've been fine and dandy, figuratively and literally, if not for two major factors.

Chrissy had a judgemental prick for a boyfriend, and her mother had held her college fund over her head from the moment she voiced an inkling of doubt in their relationship. Apparently good christian boys like Jason, nephew of their church's preacher, were the cream of Hawkins' crop, and it would set her up for life if she accepted that she would follow him to college, get married when he graduated and come back to town to raise their kids all before she turned 25. It wasn't even that Chrissy didn't want that life -actually, she desperately wanted to find someone who would love her, marry her and settle down for a long, quiet life -but she wanted to do it on her terms, not her mother's or Jason's.

Eddie quickly learnt to hate Chrissys' mom and look at Jason with something akin to pity. At least Jason, despite being a self absorbed teenage boy, did actually seem to love Chrissy -though it was clear after watching for a few weeks that he didn't much listen to her or notice when she was struggling. The less said about how Eddie felt concerning the way Chrissy's mother treated her, the better his blood pressure would be, but he could work out that animosity by getting Chrissy out of her head and eating, and there wasn't a damn thing Laura Cunningham could do about it.

Or at least, there wasn't anything physical, Eddie thought grimly one day when he picked up Chrissy's shirt off his floor -she always changed at his place to be more comfortable -and noticed the rough edges of hastily taken in seams. Or the way that on Mondays Chrissy had recently started flinching at loud voices and would pick at her food, never actually eating it, and always, always make a point to sit closer to Jason at lunch and in class even though after school she told Eddie she wanted nothing more than to be left alone. Eddie was pretty sure she was going to snap one day and it wouldn't turn out well.

He wished he could just tell her to kick Jason to the curb, but it would only make her other problems worse, and there were still months until graduation, not to mention she couldn't skip town without any funds. Even if they left together, that would be potentially months living on one income, and she'd start to hate herself for 'being a burden' even if Eddie could never think she was. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

He'd never tell the shrimp this, but Dustin really saved them when he came up with a plan one night after Hellfire, right around March when they'd spent all of the last campaign watching Eddie craft enemies who were holier-than-thou royals or witches who cursed the party with various ills. Honestly it was a miracle Chrissy herself had never witnessed one of those in action.

"So it's all about reputation?" he asked as they were packing up, a look on his face that spelled trouble whenever he pulled it during a session. Eddie nodded back, saying something about how Carver was apparently high royalty in the eyes of the waspy control freak mother population in town, and Dustin perked up even more. "Well then all Chrissy has to do is date someone better in the meantime."

That pulled Eddie up short, which made Gareth bump into his back as they left the drama room.

"How do you figure that, casanova?" Mike rolled his eyes and shoved a little at Dustin's shoulder. "Going to set her up with a winner all by yourself?"

"It wouldn't be real, Mike," Dustin rolled his eyes and put his hands on his hips, huffing. "She wants alone time and someone she can drop when she goes to college, boom. If he's better than Carver, that should keep her mom from complaining, and give her a boost in school if it's someone really impressive. The gossip chain loves a good romance," he spread his hands wide, like they should all be following him to some predestined conclusion. "Who do we know that's age appropriate, a nice dude, with a good reputation, and, more importantly, available and hung up on someone else?"

"You've got to be kidding me," Mike whined.

"You want Chrissy to fake-date Steve goddamn Harrington?!" Eddie hissed.

Steve Harrington -who better in Hawkins than Steve 'The Hair' Harrington for a hare-brained scheme like this? Steve, who still held clout from his high school days with the current juniors and seniors who hadn't noticed his fall at the time, but definitely remembered that he'd become kinder. Steve, whose name was well respected in town both for his parents' reputations and the way he'd saved people during the starcourt fire last year, and then stepped between Sinclair and Billy Hargrove the year before that. Steve, who may've been working retail but could easily fudge his situation as 'gaining independence and responsibility before he leaves town to learn under his father and take over the family business'. Steve, handsome and charming but a meangirl at heart. Steve, still hung up on Nancy wheeler so he wasn't a threat. Steve, the abdicated King.

Sue him, he'd listened to the kid's hero worship of the guy for six months, Eddie could wax poetic about his stupid tiny crush if he wanted. Thank god he'd never named serious names when he and Chrissy were bitching about the Hawkins male population before this.

More importantly, when Dustin and Eddie met with him to talk it over, Steve listened with a weirdly intense look on his face as to why Eddie was even entertaining Dustin's insane idea. It was the first time Eddie really vocalized the magnitude of how much his worry about Chrissy turned his insides out, and that if he didn't have such a negative reputation himself he'd have put himself up for grabs in a heartbeat. Eddie didn't say it outright, but the fact he was willing but unable to play Chrissy's beard really got to him, but part of the sentiment must have shone through, because in the end Steve agreed -but only if he could talk to Chrissy about it first.

It was surreal to host Chrissy, Dustin and Steve freaking Harrington in the living room of his trailer the next evening -really made him want a cigarette in the lead up, quietly fretting about what the kid and his big brother were going to think about the small, cluttered space he called home. But he shouldn't have been worried. Dustin flopped down on the couch without pause, and Steve just asked whether Eddie wanted him to take his shoes off before he followed, looking as comfortable as if he were in his own house.

Eddie had, of course, briefed Chrissy on the proposed plan on their way back from school to give her time to think on it. She was only a little miffed that Eddie had talked to Steve about it without consulting her first, but admitted it would've been awkward approaching Steve about something like this either way. She was still stewing in her thoughts by the time they showed up, brow furrowed and fingers tapping at the sweats she'd stolen from Eddie's dresser the minute they got in the door.

"So you're really still hung up on Nancy Wheeler?" she asked bluntly, and Steve choked a little. He glared at Dustin when the kid laughed and shook his head, getting up to pull him away from the couch.

"Okay, no, not having this conversation with the peanut gallery present. Take your dork master outside and let me and Chrissy talk in private," Steve shot Eddie a disarming little grin, and despite himself Eddie felt his feet move to follow a protesting Dustin right back out his own front door. The kid huffed something fierce but had a big smile on his face when he dropped into one of the porch chairs and looked up at Eddie.

"Steve's got this," he said, perfectly confident, and Eddie -well, he let himself believe it.

Steve didn't just have Dustin's admiration, he had his trust, and that didn't come cheap. If he said Steve would go along with this if Chrissy was on board, exactly to her specifications and no further, then that was what would happen. If he said Steve was still pining over the elder Wheeler, well, Eddie had his doubts based on how glued to Buckley's hip the guy was, but it meant Steve wasn't going to actually develop feelings for Chrissy. And if the guy born with a silver spoon could settle in Eddie's home without even a hint of distaste, whether it meant he was a good actor or just a good dude, either way, they were golden. Who better in Hawkins was there for a plan like this?

Well, maybe it'd be better if Eddie wasn't going to be crushing on his best friend's fake boyfriend, but no plan was perfect. He'd be fine.

[fanfoolishness]

Surprise self-rec time! Pick 3 of your favorite things you’ve written and share them here, then put this in the inbox (anonymously or not) of your fellow writers to spread the positivity and help celebrate already written fics 💞

Oh man, these favorite fic things are getting harder and harder... curse my propensity to write literally hundreds of one-shots! XD Thank you for sending this. I'll limit it to Bad Batch and pick just a few I particularly enjoyed writing.

Heightened: Hunter tries to understand a world without Tech.

Hunter is an interesting POV for me to write from. He's not as open as Wrecker, nor is he as repressed as Crosshair; but he also doesn't spend a lot of time in his own head, unlike Crosshair who's often trapped there and would prefer to get out. Hunter's grief wasn't going to look like Wrecker's, or Crosshair's. Even if the show keeps his heightened senses very subtle at times, it felt right to explore his grief through some of his senses. Instead of Hunter acknowledging he's in pain and misses Tech, he notices things like neither he or Wrecker being able to make the caf the same way Tech did, or the way the Marauder sounds so quiet. I really enjoyed this one despite the crying times it produced.

the mess you left behind: Tech called Plan 99. Wrecker's still here.

Continuing on the Tech grief train... Anyone who hangs around here for long will probably pick up on the fact that my brother died several years ago. Richie was 27 and died of his drug addiction, and while things have gotten much better, his loss etched a permanent groove deep into my brain. When I see sibling loss in media, I have to Go to There and aggressively confront it, especially when the source media fails to do so in any emotionally resonant way. So as much as I wish Tech Lives! was true, it's more emotionally harrowing - but rewarding - for me that we lost him, because it means I can dive into that loss, reshape it, honor it, and show his siblings mourning him the way he deserves to be mourned. I find great comfort in showing things like Wrecker not being able to taste food properly or flying off the handle or sleeping horribly, because those were things that happened to me. I knew grief would fuck up my brain but I had no idea how much it can fuck up your body, too, and it would have been less scary had I known about that ahead of time. So not only are fics like this my chance to honor Tech in the narrative and to further develop his siblings' characters, they're also a shout across fiction into reality for any readers who might recognize themselves in that grief and feel a little bit more seen, and a little less alone.

A New Fascination: Tech isn't sure why Phee fascinates him so, but when she tells him about an intriguing creature by the shore, he takes a chance to further investigate things.

And to give Tech his due -- here is (almost) pure fluff, with Tech and Phee flirting and slowly starting to figure each other out. This was one was so much fun to write. Tech being neurodivergent and new to the whole idea of dating made for a tricky balance, but we remember how he leapt into racing with Faster, too -- headfirst! Once he's certain of Phee's intentions (and bless him, I had Phee straight up tell him when she realized he might need that level of clarity) he's all in, and they were so much fun to write bouncing off each other. I should write more of them but then I get sad, argh! But this is just a sweet little breath of fresh air and it has both of them being adorable, plus Hunter casually trying out a new role as wingman, Wrecker wanting to tease him, and Omega being oblivious XD If you need a palate cleanser after the sads, here's the fic for you.

Thank you! <3

[absolutely-esme]

I've been enjoying sharing some of my headcanons, so I thought I might share some little tweaks I like to make to canon when I think up possible fics.

Most of these are not exactly headcanons. These are actual changes to what happened, or interpretations different enough from the view presented that it feels like a change. They don't alter the overall flow of events much. They are mostly just changing little things that bug me into things I like better.

When Danny is talking about his situation in the first episode, Sam doesn't spontaneously switch to complaining about her parents mid-sentence. She stays on the topic of Danny's very serious and potentially existential problem, but her advice on the matter is still influenced by her relationship with her own parents.

Sam is still going through her "not like other girls" phase, but is not correct about other girls. Paulina is a whole human being with her own internal life. Girls with more traditionally feminine interests are not vapid caricatures. This primarily manifests by changing or getting rid of some bits of dialog/actions driven entirely by stereotypes.

In the episode with the dance and the dragon amulet, Paulina didn't say yes to Danny because she wanted to steal Sam's boyfriend as petty revenge for an insult. Sam calling her shallow in a creative and scathing way in front of everyone made her feel self-conscious. She felt the need to prove that she wasn't shallow; she could give the weird kid a chance.

Tucker's reason for wishing for ghost powers is not just envy. Sure that's part of it; superpowers are cool. That's not all, however. Tucker and Danny have been been friends for years. They shared everything and presumably faced everything together. Now Danny is fighting battles that Tucker can't fight alongside him. Sure, Tucker is there and helps however he can, but Danny is the only super-powered heavy hitter on the team. When he's out there grappling with some kind of nightmare monster, Tucker is on the sidelines watching him take hits and hating it. His best friend is suffering, and he's not in the trenches with him.

In the episode where Desiree makes it so that Sam never met Danny and Tucker (and Danny never became a halfa), Sam doesn't immediately set about trying to re-ghostify Danny or change his ghost form purely for her own preference. Both of these things kind of creep me out because they involve imposing on another person in a way that feels like it should merit at least some hesitation.

Upon realizing what has happened, Sam initially decides to try and deal with the ghosts herself. She needs ghost-hunting tech, and the only place to get that is the Fentons. She tries to be sneaky, but Danny notices and realizes something is up. Unfortunately, a lot of Fenton tech is less effective without Danny fixing it, and Sam is working with human limitations like the inability to fly or pass through solid objects, and even if she caught Desiree, there wouldn't be a working portal to send her through. It's not working.

Ultimately, she decides to recreate the accident, this time with her instead of Danny. Danny and Tucker catch her in the lab and confront her (because they were suspicious of this weird girl who started sneaking into Danny's house right when all this other weird stuff started happening, and they want to know what's going on). Sam is incredibly stressed after trying to deal with all this alone while simultaneously losing her two closest friends and ends up spilling everything.

Danny decides to become half-ghost again. Not because Sam dressed up in pink and wore different makeup up for him. Not because he wanted the pretty girl to like him. This person cared enough about him and his best friend that she was willing to let them go for their own sakes, even if it meant she was going to miss them. She tried so hard to protect everyone alone. She was willing to die in his place. He didn't want to let her. He also didn't want to stand on the sidelines knowing there was something he could have done, that he could have protected everyone and chose not to.

Tucker and Sam both argue against it.

Sam says something to the effect of "You're not dying because of me again!" Turns out, she's been harboring some guilt over the accident. Danny says that it's not because of her and he's making his own choice.

Tucker doesn't want his best friend to get hurt in a way that will permanently change him. If he can't talk him out of it, he at least doesn't want him doing it alone. Danny points out that they only really know that Danny can survive this. It's entirely possible that growing up exposed to ectoplasm makes a difference. The risk would be higher for Tucker and Sam.

They all argue a lot more, before settling on a course of action.

The DP symbol was something Sam had previously designed at Danny's request. He hoped that something that would make him look more like a superhero would help him be viewed a little more positively. However, they hadn't been able to figure out how to add it to his ghost form. Once she realizes she's not going to be able to change his mind, she offers to add it to his suit before he goes in. She still has the vinyl decals in her backpack. One of them mistakenly made with black material instead of white.

Rather than wishing everything back to normal during the fight, Sam simply wishes for her friends to remember her.

[musesofawolf]

Day 7 - Morsel

[Trigger Warning for blood, abuse, and thoughts of death]

Garlean Soldier based on Silvaire Vana'diel

Bryn hated nights like these.

Sometimes, in his life, it was better to be out of his house, in the dark with only the night sky as company, trying to sleep on the ground rather then facing the drunken wrath of his father. He felt bad, sometimes, for leaving his mother to deal with it alone, but at twelve, even he knew to put his own well being ahead of an adult. Even if that adult was his mother.

He rolled, grunted, rising up on his arm, and punching a root under his hip, sighing and rolling onto his back to stare up at the scraggly branches of the tree above him, and the moon cradled in it. He wished that he had better clothes, something thicker than the scraggily cloth he had on his back, and the too long pants that itched. But that was about as likely as a full belly when he fell asleep.

It sucked. His life sucked. His dad sucked. His mom too. Catering to the Garlean invaders, the ones who grabbed and took whatever they wanted. Whenever they wanted. No better than animals.

He hated it.

Sitting up, he grabbed a fistful of dirt, and threw it angrily, his silver eyes glaring as he watched it scatter, and dust over black boots.

Boots that had not been there a moment before. That he had not heard.

He leapt up, fear striking deep, dragging up from those boots, over armored legs, armored chest, gloves hands, and white furred shoulders. Garlean.

Shit.

His mom would smack him for that language, over his left ear. Weird thing to think of as his gaze dipped down to the chest plate, to the Garlean insignia on one side. It was only natural to trace the detail and curves of the armor far too intricate to be a common soldier, and the helmet.

It was like two sets of mouths grinning at him as the man chuckled mirthlessly.

“What do we have here?” The voice was callus, cold, the shiver of dread down his spine far too real. He had just thrown dirt on a Garlean soldier. Some had died for less.

Was he going to die?

Some, the thought would have frozen them. Others, it would have had them turning tail, running. For Bryn, it made him scowl. Made him meet those empty eyes that adorned the mask, and scowl. Bravery, perhaps, or foolishness. But he did not back down, he did not look away, he did not freeze.

Apparently, the wrong thing to do, or really, what he knew was the wrong thing to do. Don't look them in the eyes, don't confront them, ignore them. Well, he was breaking all of those rules. And that just seemed to make the man more interested.

There was this sound, of near animalistic interest, and the Garlean took a step, and another, slow and steady, circling Bryn as he shuffled to keep facing him. “Defiance. Here I thought the regulars had bled all of that out of this town. Yet here I find…some fun.”

Bryn did not consider this fun, the way his heart was hammering, the way he could hear blood rushing in his ears. He was on the balls of his feet, his breath slow and easy, and still staring at those empty eyes as he kept turning. There was a moment, where that black booted foot was coming down on a root, could throw him off balance, and Bryn launched himself at the black armored man, determined to knock him over, to throw him off balance and escape. It was a foolproof plan! It hardly mattered that he was half the size and weight and-

The crack of the gloved hand across his cheek and head sent his brain rattling, ears ringing, dirt in his mouth as he tried to figure out why he was on the ground, when he had gotten there. There was laughter, above him, around him, he couldn't pinpoint where from, pushing up on an elbow as he spit out the dirt in his mouth, and shakily looked up, eyes swimming as he stared at man in black armor, and realized it was him laughing.

“Oh, you are interesting. What are you, a decade old? And yet with such fire. I wonder how long that fire will burn until it's snuffed out.”

The black haired tween rose to his knees, then to his feet, wobbling, as something wet and warm dripped down the side of his face. He could hardly think straight, and he heard that voice again, calling out tauntingly, “Go ahead, come at me again. Land a hit, and I'll even let you go.”

Freedom. A way out. He was stumbling forward, fist raised, swinging blindly at that black armored chest, and missing. He had sidestepped the child flailing at him, and laughed. The boot that connected with his stomach was not a laughing matter.

It hurt, it hurt so bad, unable to breath, on the ground again, curled up, coughing, blood on his lips, his tongue, his own blood as he wheezed. Why? Why him? Wasn't his life already bad enough? Slowly, slowly, his arms uncurled, his hands clenched at the ground, and he shakily rose onto all fours, coughing. He couldn't even stop from getting pushed over, the tip of the boot in his side nudging him, rolling him to his back, leaving him staring up at the moon, dragging in breath after breath as he felt like his lungs were on fire.

There was nothing he could do as the soldier leaned down.

Nothing he could do as he reached up, and removed his helmet.

Amber, honey, sharp eyes, little flecks of green. His eyes, and those long black locks, pale face. He was handsome, deadly so, even as he stared down at Bryn without a single hint of remorse, reaching down to the young boy, and slapping his cheek lightly. “Come on now, you have more fight in you. Don't you?” All Bryn could manage was a wheeze, and the man above him sighed in disappointment, shaking his head. “How sad. I guess that's all the fire you have. Well, you're hardly worth the meal, little morsel, but it would be a waste otherwise.”

He barely heard the glove come off, didn't even register the hand on his burning chest, but he did feel the two wicked claws pierce the flesh of his chest, cut through his shirt, and drag down his body.

He couldn't scream, there wasn't enough air in his lungs. All he could do was writhe under those piercing claws, jerk and shake, beg in his mind for someone to save him.

Who? Your dad? Your mom? You have nobody.

Those dark whispers, edging in at the corner of his mind, threatening to drag him under. Telling him to just give up as the man leaned down, his face twisted in a sneer of pleasure at the pain he wrought.

Who would even miss you?

No, not like this. Not to a Garlean.

Didn't you want to die?

Not like this!

Then fight!

That voice, rippling with power, filling his mind, strength bursting through his bones, his body, his arms, his fist launching up, and slamming into the open mouth of the soldier over him, and smacking it closed with a solid pop.

The claws in his chest froze, and a look of pure shock danced over the Garlean’s face, staring down at the panting boy that had just socked him. There was silence, for what felt like minutes, but was only seconds, before he started laughing, this time for real. True mirth.

Bryn felt those claws pull away, saw the glove pulled back onto a still bloody hand, and sucked in his breath as the honey eyed man leaned down. “Grow strong, little morsel. I swear, I won't lay another finger on you until you’ve mastered that power within you. You will taste all the sweeter once you do.”

Bryn didn't remember him leaving, or blacking out, but he awoke with the sun beating down on him, high in the sky, and his mouth dry. A hand shakily lifted to his chest, traced down the two healed scars, drew breath into his no longer burning lungs, and would have thought the whole thing was a dream.

Except his shirt was torn, in the same path as his new scars. Scars that felt and looked months old, not hours.

His arm flopped back out onto the ground, and he lay there under that tree, slowly replaying that night, mulling over it, and remembering what today was.

“My name day,” he croaked out. He was thirteen. He likely turned thirteen sometime during that torturous night. And now he knew for certain one thing, and one thing only.

He had to get out of Ala Mhigo.

[team7-headquarter]

Quick interpretation of the Land of Iron arc and Sakura's role in it:

I won't use images this time, but you can go and check my interpretation against the arc to see if it clicks for you or not. It's a possible reading, not an absolute. I don't claim this is the only way to see the arc, understood?

I've seen a lot of people mocking Sakura for her choices in those chapters. From declaring fake love to Naruto, poisoning her team and going after Sasuke alone, to facing him again when Kakashi told her to stay back, etc.

It's not my favorite arc and I have many points I often criticize about it, but right now I'm putting my biased view away to properly read into it.

First point: It's not about romance anymore.

It'd be easy to read it that way. There's Sakura's love declaration, Naruto's own words (she loves him, she would never do it), Karin's thoughts on how Sakura loves/likes Sasuke too, etc.

The problem is that if it was about romance, things would be easier. Instead, we have a war context where Sakura knows there's people after Naruto, they're about to enter an internal conflict, Sasuke is being chased by all types of shinobis and all nations, her own friends agree with going after him, Tsunade is in coma, etc.

It's a breakdown that's been building up since the last chapters of the Classic, where Sakura decided to pretend she was okay about Sasuke not being back because she didn't want to hurt Naruto anymore. Her worry grows when Chiyo tells her about the Akatsuki being after the jinchurikis, Naruto included. When they go to confront Orochimaru, Sakura runs to Naruto after seeing him losing control, hurting.

The story sets her to decide between saving Naruto or Sasuke. The choice is apparent, since we the readers know there are many options, but it doesn't mean it is any less real for Sakura. We trust Naruto has the alternative, a way of saving Sasuke without killing him, or at least we trusted in him back then. Sakura, who was in one of her worst times, felt compelled to do something to protect the people she loved and in her desperation, rushed to make her mistake.

Many mistakes.

It's not Sakura's place to be the perfect heroine. It's her burden tho: to break under the social pressure, doubt her own gut instinct and follow what she thinks is "the right thing". Everyone tells her Sasuke is too far gone, that he's only gonna cause more pain. She sees how it hurts Naruto and she "knows" her hope in Sasuke is part of the weight in Naruto's shoulders.

If it was about who she liked better, Sakura wouldn't have betrayed both of them. Either her confession to Naruto would have been real or she would have taken Sasuke's side. Even if her love was biased (and it was), we know that it is not enough to make her waver on her own beliefs. She doesn't follow Naruto or Sasuke's wishes or orders.

This is about her character. Her own moment.

She thinks "I need to put Naruto somewhere safe and I need to kill Sasuke before he falls deeper into his madness/darkness". So much is true. Is it selfish? Certainly. She doesn't want to see the boys she loves destroyed. She doesn't want to see them dead, and that's why she is unable to kill Sasuke. She doesn't want to see them become a monster, the reason why she ran to them both when the cursed mark took over Sasuke and the kyubi chakra took over Naruto.

It is selfish, but not more than the actions of her teammates. She is not worse or better than them at the moment. Just different.

Second point: reflection and distortion.

Everyone was selfish in that arc, or do you really think any of them was sacrificing what they really wanted in order to benefit others?

Naruto wanted Sasuke alive and he was not giving up. He is selfless in many things, but not when it comes to Sasuke. He was not allowing them to kill him, that wouldn't happen.

Sasuke had his goal and his life and he was not giving those up in order to make Team 7 happy. Alas, I don't mean it as in he should had done it because no, Sasuke shouldn't have to give up his life for them when they couldn't really get why he was doing all he was doing. It was not his job to make them understand either, but it is a fact he was being selfish.

To make it clear, being selfish here is not a bad thing necessarily. Very human, but not morally black in all senses.

Kakashi was willing to kill Sasuke himself for selfish reasons too. He didn't want Sasuke to keep committing crimes, he didn't want it to be Sakura who killed him (or got killed by trying), he didn't want Naruto either to do it —he was also a very good Konoha nin.

And Sakura refused to let Kakashi carry that burden alone. She didn't want Naruto either to be the only one always chasing after Sasuke (she would later get why only Naruto could do it, no matter how hard the others tried). And she didn't want Sasuke to continue changing, but was also unable to stop him from doing so.

Naruto even told Sasuke he would die with him if necessary. That's a selfish wish. Fuck the rest of the world, I'll go with you to death if I can't bring you back with me.

For the shippers of one or other pairing, there is plenty of food in this arc. It's not much about romance as it is about shapeless devotion.

It was a circle of not wanting to lose the other or wanting to lose the other (in Sasuke's case) because he knew how powerful the grief would be —and don't get me started on how hatred and love are intertwined with the Uchihas.

So when it comes to Sakura, although she is not the exception, she receives a lot of hate for her actions. The core of her actions are not any different from Naruto's or Sasuke's or Kakashi's. The only differences are that she is represented as the love interest of both Sasuke and Naruto, that she's a girl, that her power doesn't consist of flashy techniques and that her themes are expressed almost in a cliché "girly" way.

You don't have to like her, you don't even have to say why you don't like her, but at least hate her for canon flaws or traits or acknowledge the fact you would love her if she was a male character. It's not that hard.

Final point: Consequences

Whenever you face the challenge of reading an arc correctly, ask yourself "how does this move the plot? how does this affect the characters in terms of evolving or regressing them? given the themes of the manga, how does this resonate with them? what is the purpose of these acts?"

For Sakura:

( A ) It shows us how much she cares about Naruto and how much Naruto cares back.

Her bad actions were rooted in good intentions and despair. This arc shows us that she's willing to make herself a tool, a weapon, if it could guarantee Naruto's safety or happiness. She basically offers herself to be used without thinking how she's insulting the others with it. She starts acting the way she thinks others want her to act. This arc somehow regresses her to her genin days, when she was trying to be someone she was not. That's what Naruto points out, what he hates the most. She is hurting herself and him by pretending, by lying to herself and him. She betrays Naruto and Sasuke while simultaneously failing at doing so.

She loves them, maybe not in the ways they wish she could love them, but that's who she is and that's how she feels. She cannot force any one to change their minds, she can't control their decisions and it's not worth it fading away, trying to do so. In that arc, Naruto is the one who's emotionally mature about it. He doesn't stop loving Sakura, the way he doesn't stop loving Sasuke. They might be lost, but that's okay, he got them.

( B ) It solidifies Kakashi and Sakura's dynamic.

This arc gives us an overdue apology from Kakashi, who acknowledges that he failed his team. To Sakura he regrets covering the issues with a smile, lying to her while saying that it all would be okay. Sakura didn't trust anyone to go with her, which he recognizes too. He wants to shoulder her burdens, make up for her for his shortcomings and mistakes. Of course, the arc also gives us a bunch of parallels between Rin and Sakura, even throwing some Haku and Zabuza parallels in there. And of course, it's not all about Sakura. Kakashi also knows he failed Sasuke, but knows they are past amending things like he could do with Sakura.

On the other hand, Sakura refuses to allow Kakashi to carry what should be their burden. She spent all her Gemini days letting others fight for her. She's not that kid anymore, even when it means she could get killed. Thing is, Sakura has no way of knowing how much her death would traumatize Kakashi and she's not the type to normally notice just how much she means to others.

( C ) It addresses the state of her affection for Sasuke —and served as a frame to show how lost Sasuke is.

Lost doesn't mean confuses (although he was). In this case, lost means that Sasuke was deep in trauma. He was being heavily manipulated, he was abusing his body beyond his limits, he was a mess. He was hurting.

If we guide ourselves by the manga moment when he was the most open and honest, he'd deeply regret all he did to Sakura. There's no way of knowing what killing her would do to him, but the previous instances of such events tended towards total madness. Naruto saved them all by saving Sakura that day.

On Sakura's side, well, she never stopped loving him, caring, she couldn't. We saw her ugly lie to Naruto's face, we saw how she POISONED her teammates, she did many wrong things and didn't falter. Kill Sasuke? She could not. Her hands wouldn't obey her. She's not the type to not do a stupid thing because she's afraid (after all, Kakashi had to physically stop her multiple times during the Kaguya fight because she was gonna get herself killed, c'mon). She couldn't kill him because her affection was genuine and deep rooted within her. It's a line she couldn't, wouldn't cross.

( D ) It sets her as her own character, capable of making her own choices and mistakes.

Sakura was never meant to be an angelic type of girl, silent and uncomplicated. She was also not meant to be all hardedged, mean and evil. She's not a damsel, neither a #GirlPower girl.

Sakura makes mistakes, has friends willing to help them through the consequences, and then she grows. They are patient with her because she's been there for them too. They are not perfect either. It's not the first, not the last time a shinobi would do something wrong or dumb out of love, pride, desperation, who knows.

Didn't Tsunade poison Jiraiya too to go after Orochimaru? Sasuke and Naruto spend years chasing each other and humiliating each other for the sake of their bonds. Hinata went to fight Pain all alone. Rock Lee almost lost his legs. Rin made Kakashi kill her. Kakashi failed his genin team. Obito was ready to destroy change the world. So was Madara. Minato sealed Kurama in Naruto. And on and on and on.

Sakura's actions during the Land of Iron arc might feel more cringe for some people, but it's just that, a feeling. Why? Maybe the problem is in the romance aspect of it all, badly portrayed as it was. Maybe it's because some girlish acts make people feel more naturally ashamed. Or it's because people see their own mistakes or shortcomings reflected in there.

Whatever it is, it's okay to hate it or don't like it, like I said in some paragraph before. Still, when it's time to properly interpret the story, you can't let those feelings cloud your thinking.

I know I said it was a quick interpretation and it really is. Any other day, I'd have pulled s bunch of manga panels to prove my point. But for now, it must be the (still undiagnosed) ADHD talking.

Hope you guys like it!

[sciencelings-writes]

The Many Duties of the Princesses Appointed Knight

AO3 Link

wc: 1514

Here’s my @zelinkcommunity hosted Loftwing Letter for Lizzieee on discord (tagged the wrong account sorry) 

I hope you like it!

Zelda had never been much of a morning person. The night had always been a silent reprieve from her constant duties and stress, from the judgemental eyes of lords and guards and maids. A momentary sense of calm before the chaos of daily life was set to repeat.  

Even here, nearly alone out in the wilds, she dreaded finally opening her eyes to start her preparations for the day. The birdsong was far too loud for her to go back to the comforting embrace of sleep, the air outside of her bedroll was far too cold. She was stuck in a purgatory of aversion to confronting the waking hours and being unable to escape to a better place. 

For a long minute, she let herself mourn the return of the sun that signaled the return of her much-hated routine. At least they weren’t in the castle, though they would be back to civilization far too soon to be able to call their trip any sort of leisure. Another journey where Link was to escort her to the temple of time for yet more days of endless devotion that will go unseen by the goddess. 

He had been her personal knight for nearly a year after it had been discovered that the smaller the party that escorted her all around Hyrule was, the less likely that there would be a Yiga attack. He was the best candidate, not only because he could protect her, but because he could take care of her. Even in the wilderness with no pretentious gazes of castle folk, she was still a princess and ordered to be treated as such. 

Thankfully for her, Link wasn’t just a well-trained warrior, but also a great cook and an educated survivalist. He took the place of nearly all of her attendants while they traveled, the stablehand that took care of her horse, the servants that weaved her hair into intricate ceremonial designs, in charge of doing nearly everything that she simply couldn’t do herself, no matter how much she wished she could. 

It was a decent extra workload, but they haven’t been tracked by Ganon’s cult of evil ninjas for months, the last time being in Gerudo desert, when before it was just the two of them, the party would get ambushed nearly once a trip. 

Link had never complained, even after they had gotten so much closer since the incident. She’d made it clear that he could if he wanted to, practically begging him to admit that she was annoying to deal with but he always gave her an amused look that she could never quite dissect the true meaning of. 

At some point, she had to accept that she should wake up instead of pretending that she was sleeping with the hope that another few hours of slumber would take her. Though she had to admit to herself that it wasn’t purely because she was too bored to stay under her pile of blankets.

What was left of her vitriolic hatred for the morning started to dissipate when her ears tuned into an increasingly familiar sound. Link was humming. It was quiet, especially amongst the noise of those cursed songbirds, but it was the pull she needed to escape her woolen confines. His muffled song vaguely put images of flying through the sky into her mind, like when she was on Revali’s back to get to Vah Medoe. The tune felt familiar but she couldn’t quite place it.

Before she knew it, she had found herself sitting on the grass in front of him with a plate holding a fresh omelet, trying to suppress shivers as his gentle fingers combed through her hair. She had to admit, she much preferred him to her army of handmaidens, who felt the need to fill the silence with meaningless conversation when she was only barely awake enough to attempt to politely converse. That and for some reason, she never felt the urge to cringe away from his touch, it was somehow never unwelcome. 

Zelda couldn’t quite manage to focus on the taste of her food with the repeated graze of Link's fingernails against her scalp like he was trying to separate her hair into sections but there was never a perfectly equal amount so he had to try again and again. The repetitious action brought back the weight to the top of her eyelids, the yearning to curl up back in her blankets that she thought she had banished had returned with vigor.  

It didn’t help that he was still humming. 

She didn’t know how long she had spent in a half-awake daze, at some point she finished her omelet, at least judging from the empty plate at her side. But that foggy feeling ceased and she nearly snapped awake when she realized the sensation of her hair being manipulated had stopped, and even worse, it felt like Link was about to get up from his partially kneeling position. That would be completely unacceptable, she had to act. 

The moment she felt him start to adjust his weight, she launched herself backward, letting out a grunt of a hum when the slight ache in her back was finally eased. She grabbed his arms which had begun to flail and wrapped them around her collar like a scarf, it was a miracle that he didn’t fall on his back. 

“Just a few more minutes…” the princess closed her eyes as she felt a puff of air tickle her hair. She didn't care that she sounded a little whiny, the time she had alone with Link was limited this day and she really didn’t want to waste it watching him pack up their camp to rush to the temple.

“I’m sorry your highness, but we really have places to be,” His pity was exaggerated, perhaps he could tell that she wouldn’t move so easily. 

“We’re not in front of the King, you can call me by my name,” she pouted and peeked her eyes open to look up at him. He looked a little strange from this angle, but she didn’t mind. 

“Alright, Zelda, we have to stay on schedule and you know who they will get mad at if we’re late.” He said but made no effort to move out from under her.

“Me,” she grumbled. 

“That’s right, but it’s still part of my job to get you places. You’re still excited to see the cats that hang out in the courtyard right?” He smiled, she did like the friendly tortoiseshell that basked in the sun that came through the vibrant glass windows. It always jumped up and trotted toward her and was leagues happier to see her than her own father ever was. 

“Yeah… but I’ll have to talk to the elder and pray for six hours straight before I’m allowed to wander around.” She frowned. 

“I can ask her to temporarily close the sanctuary, I can use the excuse that you shouldn’t be distracted from your devotions, at least that means you won’t have to talk to anyone…” 

“You’d do that for me?” Her eye widened, mirroring the pleading eyes of her favorite cat at the temple. 

“If we can get going in time.” Link promised and moved to stand, though the princess still refused to lean back up. Thankfully, the hero had a plan. He shifted her to where her head was resting closer to his shoulder before hooking his arm under her knees and getting to his feet. The soft glow of pink that tinted her cheeks and the tips of her ears indicated that this was not a move that she had been expecting. 

He strolled over to her well-decorated white horse, only to pause at its flank. Surveying its staddle like a challenge before accepting defeat. 

“I don’t think I’m tall enough to be able to put you on his back.” He admitted. 

“Hold on, don’t drop me.” As someone who was tired of doing things the normal way, and was currently out of sight from anyone who would judge her, Zelda was excited to choose the hardest possible method to fix her problem. 

Using Link’s head, shoulders, hips, and arms as a really short tree that she was trying to climb, she managed to scramble onto her horse without ruining her sacred braids or wrinkling her holy dress too much. She smoothed down the few areas that had been affected, training her face easily into a well-practiced expression of elegance and grace as if she hadn’t just contorted her body like an animal who desperately did not want to be held. 

For a moment Link just stood there, his hair slightly disheveled from being used as an anchor, looking at her far less incredulously than she had been expecting. 

“Try not to run off?” He suggested with a brief glance at their meager campsite. 

“No promises.” She replied sweetly, and for some odd reason, she had come to accept that perhaps mornings weren’t so bad, just as long as she had the right person to spend one with. 

[snow-system-wol]

After S'ria and Minfilia come back from their little solo hunting trip (with two greater sin eaters felled and one heartstone retrieved), Thancred does want to have a chat with S'ria about the last handful of days.

Ao3

When Thancred had asked to speak with him, alone, and led him out into the woods – well, it was really a testament to their old friendship that S'ria didn't refuse on principle.

Oh, S'ria could've guessed really, what the topic of choice might be. Thancred seemed to have some sort of reaction to S'ria escorting Minfilia into a fight without asking for his opinion first, and that was only a few hours ago. Back under the trees was a place she would not be likely to overhear it.

And that left S'ria finding a patch of ground that wasn't too boggy, standing on tree roots instead and leaning back against the bark. Meanwhile, Thancred already seemed to have words waiting to tumble out, no pleasantries to indulge first.

“I think she likes you more than she does me, and she's only known you for less than a moon.”

Whatever he thought Thancred might actually start the conversation with, though, it wasn't that. Said differently, it could've been light-hearted or perhaps slightly self-deprecating. The words were… S'ria wasn't sure if Thancred had meant to sound so bitter. He'd originally chosen to lean against a nearby tree, but suddenly felt much less comfortable with being trapped between a solid surface and Thancred standing in front of him.

S'ria pushed off the tree and took a few steps to the side, casually, hoping that his anxious intent was not quite so blatant. It at least put him where he wanted to be, staring down Thancred on equal footing.

Well, slightly unequal, in S'ria's favor – even if he was barely taller than Thancred, it put him somewhat at ease.

Maneuvering aside, he did have to respond.

The conversation was going to be messy no matter what, but S'ria wasn't quite sure he had the energy for this particular argument. He had a great many opinions, but putting some of them bluntly may lead to an outright fistfight between the two of them.

Menphina settled gently in his head, reminding him that there was no obligation to be confrontational.

(Was there an obligation though, for Minfilia’s sake?)

She had no response to that line of thinking aside from the stray thought that maybe S'ria should put his safety first in this case. More intentionally, she amended her statement to simply promising that she'd help dull the sharpness of what he wanted to say – or at least try to.

S'ria wasn't sure she would fare much better, really – as much as she aimed for diplomacy, Menphina very clearly had grievances of her own, a protective streak running deep.

The assistance was… something at least, if she was able to help him pick phrasing that was less hostile.

“Has she said such a thing to you?”

It wasn't quite playing dumb, that would only aggravate Thancred – simply gathering the facts on the table.

“She has been a bit more outgoing, and maybe a bit happier, since she met you.”

“That's a good thing, isn't it?”

Thancred hesitated only briefly. “Yes, it is.”

Then there was only the distant sound of birds and the everpresent rustling of leaves. S'ria was prepared to wait – that clearly wasn't all. A simple ‘Minfilia seems happy’ would not have necessitated an isolated chat. He shifted his stance on the ground, almost wishing they were both seated somewhere. He'd been starting to feel slightly more exhausted than usual, it was unpleasant. Not unbearable, though. S'ria assumed a prolonged breakdown followed by multiple battles would leave someone a touch tired though, yes.

“What, exactly, you do think you're doing?”

Thancred's tone was so frustrated that all S'ria could manage in response was a slightly bewildered “Pardon?”

“I turn my back for a single bell and you're already letting her lead you into dangerous situations.”

S'ria frowned. “As opposed to what? Letting her come out here by herself?” He glanced at the pack of raptors stalking something maybe a 100 yalms from where they stood, as if to make a point.

“Did you even think to tell her to stay behind? Or, at the very least, take point on strategy?”

S'ria crossed his arms, the civility slowly starting to bleed out of his voice. “You've taught her much over the last three years. Maybe she deserves to have her opinions heard.”

If S'ria listened closely, he could almost hear Thancred gritting his teeth. “...She got hurt”.

S'ria thought back to what he'd seen while escorting her back. Minfilia had been a bit winded, but no more than would be typical for someone that didn't quite have a tolerance for heavy exertion yet. She looked to have gone down hard at least once during the fight, with a skinned knee and a slightly favored leg, but – that really wasn't much, was it? Not enough to stop her from finishing the fight on her own, she managed that just fine.

Hells, the only skin broken was a tiny bit just above where her boots stopped. Was such a thing truly a big deal?

S'ria nodded. “Only barely, no worse than if she'd tripped over a tree root.”

Thancred's eyes narrowed and S'ria immediately got the sense that he'd given the wrong answer.

“No wonder she likes you so much, if you're so lax and unconcerned about her safety. Maybe she would've preferred you as a protector – but she would not have survived this long.”

S'ria wished his ears were not so damn telling, the way they flattened against his head. “Being unworried over this is not the same as letting her die. Of course I care about her safety – I just also care about her well-being. Is it truly so bad for me to let her make choices?”

S'ria was increasingly aware of the fact that he'd, at some point, pushed Menphina's influence to the side in favor of letting himself feel frustrated.

“You have the luxury of being indulgent with her and being her new adult to look up to – but you weren't here these last few years. You haven't had to make difficult choices that she might resent. I am trying to keep her alive… if you set her on a path of teenage rebellion and she stops listening to me when it matters most, I swear –”. Thancred cut off and took a deep breath through his nose. “We will all regret that.”

S'ria chose to sidestep the ambiguous threat in favor of honing in on the prior statement.

“Is that what you think this is?! Unpredictable teenaged whims? For – for her to spend that many years in a gilded cage with absolutely no control over her life, and then you –”.

Even without Menphina's interference, S'ria had the good sense to snap his mouth shut instead of finishing that sentence.

There were… far harsher thoughts lingering on his tongue, worse still than the accusations he'd cut off from saying. As much as a part of him clamored to let the words come forth anyway, he knew there was no salvaging what that'd cause.

Besides, S'ria had said enough – perhaps too much – already.

Thancred was much quieter, his tone unreadable. “What is that supposed to mean?”

Whether Thancred was about to kill him or was having an epiphany, there was nowhere good for this to go if it continued. S'ria chose to respond to an entirely different question than the one that was asked, his tone flat.

“You're right, it's not my role to lecture her. If she asks for my help, I will give it, and treat her as an ally. Else, you can use your authority without me undermining it.” 

S'ria looked up at the sky. Despite the bright glow remaining, he could hear the shift of the forest – of nocturnal animals coming out of slumber in some long-irrelevant circadian rhythm.

He didn't look back at Thancred, even as he continued speaking. “I think we've been gone for long enough – they'll worry.” S'ria did not wait for a response before starting to walk away.

------

Post-notes:

As bad as the unfinished thing of comparing Thancred to the Eulmorans was, the comment that he had far harsher things that he considered saying was very true. S'ria heavily leans non-confrontational as a person, but in that brief moment, he wanted to lash out and could not possibly tell you whether that was his own idea or if he could blame it on another.

Possibly the worst thing S'ria was tempted to say was: “The only reason she stays by your side is because she is more afraid of Ran’jit than she is of you.” But S'ria knew that would have been disastrous and was absolutely not something he could take back.

[citrus-cactus]

I gotta ask now that you've beaten moral. Opinions on the professor?

Gotta say I just love his whole arc something about it resonates w me

Something about it never being too late to start healing

Ooh yeah, I’m a real fan of that takeaway!

(More beneath the cut)

I’ll be honest, the Professor as a plot device in the first half of the game (when he’s actually present in the party and not assumed dead) frustrated me occasionally. I’m a big fan of writers portraying characters as fleshed-out people, so I was actually fairly irked that he went unnamed for so long and that it seemed like his role (at first) was to be a rather one-dimensional adult/symbol of authority who dropped plot-relevant exposition on occasion. I understand now why his name was withheld (and why he had difficulty remembering past events in his life), but I think both of these things could have been handled differently—for example, the game referring to him as Professor Minase would have made way more sense (to me) than handing us Miyuki’s family name right from the start via the profile screen!

It kind of makes me wish Takuma’s POV wasn’t our primary insight into his character, because as a player, I really wanted to understand more about what he was going through during the game in his own words, and during those times when he requested to be left alone with his thoughts (the other human characters drop enough hints at what’s going on in their private lives, and it’s almost better that some of their specific issues are left a little open to interpretation). The fact that the Professor wasn’t willing (or wasn’t able?) to properly introduce himself to the kids until Part 8 seemed like a wild choice from a writing perspective, and for a time in Parts 5 and 6, he seemed extremely shady to me… but as it turns out, I was suspicious of the wrong Haru :3

THIS MOMENT TOOK WAY TOO LONG TO GET TO and didn’t feel like a satisfying reveal by the time it finally happened. Of course the other characters would be surprised at this revelation, but c’mon game, give your players (and Takuma!) some more credit that they might have figured it out before now :)

But ultimately, the fact that Akiharu wasn’t an ancillary character after all, but a “main” character in his own right, with a character arc, fated partner, and a role in battle was a really nice surprise, because it is so rare we get an adult/older human partnered with a digimon (02 and Savers/Data Squad being the only examples of this I can think of right now), much less one who needs to confront their own personal demons and reconcile with their digimon partner! And I really liked Gabumon/Garurumon as a character as well, because he also represents something we don’t see often in digimon partners: a digimon who feels utterly betrayed by his human at being separated/left behind.

They get an evo screen and everything! Yeah!!

I may have missed why Akiharu was so forgetful in the first place (was it the fall during the prologue? The fog? The OTHER fall? The guilt/trauma from his first time in the Digital World? How much of his life was spent researching the kemonogami, without fully knowing WHY he felt compelled to conduct it??)… but once the game was past him being a slow-drip reveal engine, I really enjoyed seeing him be able to address some of that trauma, reconcile with Gabumon, and succeed at finally rescuing Miyuki. And as much as the treatment of Akiharu pre-reveal frustrates me, there is a neat parallel between the Minase siblings in the first half of the game: they are both only half-there, half-complete, and something-something they are only able to become truly whole again when they are able to fully see their digimon partners, and their partners’ pain.

Once they were their “true” selves, I really enjoyed seeing Akiharu and Miyuki’s interactions. And their conversation that served as an epilogue to the moral route was so sweet! I am ALSO not over Miyuki having to adjust to life in the Real World 50 years later, and finally reuniting with her 50-years-older younger brother. And don’t even get me STARTED on Haru/Renamon. That reveal was done really well. 🥺

Including this picture because AAAAUGH <3

So yeah, when push comes to shove, I’m very normal about both the Minase siblings and their partner digimon (this is a lie, I am not normal about them at all afsgsffsfs) 👍

[the-gayest-tree-you-ever-did-see]

Have you seen the prequel movie? If yes🌹>>>

A. In your opinion, please rate TBOSAS movie with 1-10 scale.

(1 = I hate it, 10 = I love it.)

Things that you like :

Things that you don't like :

B. For people who also read the novel.

Your opinions about the difference between the book and the movie :

Thank you 🎼

@curiousnonny

<333333 yes yes yes 🌹🌹

A) hmm im gonna say 8? im not very good at number ratings. i had read the book already so i went in with the context of everything and coryo's internal monologue so i very much enjoyed it for the visuals and being able to see everything i read on screen + hearing the songs. biggest pride point is that ballad of lucy gray baird sounds exactly like i thought it would -- i have a recording of me singing how i thought it sounded and its nearly the same as in the movie so i was VERY haunted by that bc it felt like it was taken out of my mind. however, if i hadnt read the books, i dont think i wouldve enjoyed it as much bc it took away from a lot of the story to not know what snow was thinking -- it just didnt have the same impact

things i like: the dress was gorgeous and very realistic (and the touch of katniss and primrose designs on the bodice was chefs kiss), and the color symbolism was very fun to watch unfold, both with the obvious district blue/panem red as well as the colors of the roses and just the color imagery in general. i love rachel zegler and am very happy with her as lucy gray, but sejanus was perfect casting for me; he looked EXACTLY like i thought he would. also when i was reading the book, i knew what took place where and when that matched up with places in thg, but being able to see it was a whole other story.

things i dont like: um nothing much really for the movie on its own? like i have Opinions on the changes they made, but as it's own thing, i only wish we had more of coryo's internal thoughts -- and if not, a heavier emphasis on lucy gray. without either, it just felt like the dynamics fell a little flat, especially compared to the dynamics of the og movies.

B) OOOOOOOH okay so i was fine with most of the changes to the story for the movie -- theres only so much time and so many ways to show something and its a different medium, so i understand why things had to be different. BUT! i very much did not like two changes. one, that lucy gray wins the games by not being killed by the snakes. its a lovely scene and great to watch, but i feel like it almost takes power away from lucy gray. we, as the audience, know that it isnt her singing that keeps the snakes at bay, and so all it really shows us is how easy it is to make the capitol see district citizens as human like them, if only they get past their own blinders. and since she survives bc coryo gave his handkerchief with her scent to the snakes, it just makes it so he won the games, not lucy gray. the way it played out in the book mightve been less cinematic to watch, but it was much better in my opinion. like, the fact that lucy gray had to resort to using reaper's humanity against him in order to kill him, and that it was a suicide that led to her survival was very poignant and i feel like we missed out on that.

the other change i disliked was how we didnt see arachne's funeral and the spectacle it became. again, i know that with the movie's age rating, it might not have been entirely possible to show the parade of brandy's body but i very much wish we had to be forced to confront the dehumanization that was prevalent in the capitol -- i feel like we hear it a lot in the movie, but we dont ever really see it in a way that isnt excusable by the games. i also think it wouldve been a very intriguing parallel for coryo's to sing the anthem (also bc he sings it in the books twice i think, once in a group and once alone) and have his performance be a stark difference to how lucy gray and the covey perform. one thing the movie did well was letting the art stand for itself -- the music, sure, but also the designs of the clothes and the city, as well as the statue at the end. i think adding coryo's singing wouldve been awesome to see.

i also kind of wish we saw the plinths get close to coryo just bc it was so important to propel him into who he became, but i understand that there just wasnt enough time and space to show that. although, when they played the jabberjay recording at sejanus's execution? GAGGED. i nearly started screaming right there. that little sequence will haunt me forever.

i do wish ballad was split into two movies despite any backlash to give more time to tell this story -- the book itself is absolutely packed, so to make it one movie under three hours long almost feels like a disservice? but i honestly went in to put some visuals to the book and to watch the arc play out on a screen, and so im pretty happy with what i got! im definitely rewatching it when i rewatch the other movies and thats all i really need :]

thank YOU nonny<333 i'd love to hear your thoughts as well !!!!!! i dont have many people to talk to about ballad so its awesome to be asked these questions! love you<33

[femmefaggot]

I spent a lot of time, especially in the couple weeks after coming down from Avatarhood, replaying the death of my parents.

(I was a little surprised Fadi hadn't kicked me out. He seemed to have a near infinite well of patience, even with me stuck in my own head at the best of times and accidentally corrupting what had to have been months if not years of painstakingly gathered information during one particularly bad night earlier on.)

The memory, or whatever amalgamation of memory and imagined scenarios I've managed to conjure over the years, is never exactly the same every time.

The cold of winter was cut through by the heat of the fire in one. There was a smell of rain to come before the smoke overtook it in another. It was late at night. The sun was just rising, red and orange like everything else I could see. They died with each other. They died alone. They died wondering if their child was safe. They died before they could get get the thought out.

(It was probably just a normal night, in the end, for most of the city.)

The broad strokes remained the same, though. It was my fault, they were trapped in their room, it started with me, I could not do anything.

(I don't think I'd have been able to. I can see that now. It didn't make it feel any less like I had killed them.)

I can't remember their eye colors, exactly, despite all the other relatively useless information I have stored. There is a lot about them I either don't remember or simply never knew.

They changed, morphed into one unit over the years. I think that sometimes, when you lose someone, especially for the first time, they can turn into a twisted version of themselves. It is not malicious or even conscious, but after over a decade they have ceased to be people. They're a nebulous concept. Grief personified.

I suppose I'm lucky that in my case, that last one is just metaphorical.

The rest of this odd group of people that I could or do call friends have pasts they've been dragging around like corpses as well. It's strange. Most of us have a good grasp on the others' various issues; everything we've been doing has been excersize after excersize of confronting the things we do not wish to face. I don't know any of their favorite colors or foods. It would be nice to get a chance to be people, perhaps together, after this.

Living in this city has felt a lot like either trying to frantically dig your way out of whatever hole everything from your past buried you in or letting it slowly kill you. Maybe that's just life in general, though. I don't have the best frame of reference. I think maybe here it's just more visible. Pain seems an entirely new thing. Hearts are readily available on sleeves whether or not the owners are privy to it.

I wonder if the city is something Corbin can't escape. If it's his own giant nightmare of grief and suffering that has trapped him in a loop. I had to leave my old neighborhood to make sure I wasn't suffocated. Does he feel similarly haunted? Does he remember the people he's hurt? Feel sorrow for them? Has the pain overridden his empathy?

I fear there are too many questions and not nearly enough answers.

I'm not sure it's enough to hope we all make it out unscathed this time. I've got to be sure it will happen, that we can make it through to the other side not only alive but better for it, that we all have homes to go back to. I've got a lot more to live for now than I felt I did before. I think maybe we all do.

[oldfacesnewdawnoffical]

oh PLEASE tell why it's a mutual scorning

i am so interested in the inter-personal drama

HSIFHJF EVERYBODY’S SO INTERESTED ABOUT THEM I LOVE IT AAHHHH

Born as vagabonds, the two littermates (then known as Rigel and Betelgeuse) were given to the Moorswept shortly after their birth, willingly offered to them by a newly widowed vagabond whose mate had died in childbirth. Initially claimed by the former orator, Rhema Heatherstep, the entire faction was left reeling when she lost her last life almost immediately afterward. The faction labeled the duo as cursed immediately, and they were left to the (very hesitant) paws of the head guardian - barely a moon old.

As such, they grew up very close. Eventually named Runner and Jumper, the two quickly made a name for themselves, even amongst the faction that regarded them with a wary eye (even with Magpietail’s best efforts). Runner was bold and brash, skilled with his paws in a way that many of his faction envied. Meanwhile, Jumper was far less noteworthy, especially on his own; he was somewhat cowardly, always looking for the easier path to take, but still a warm and kind cat that many grew to enjoy the company of. Together, they were the life of the party, and gained a name across the fealty for being as such. Until, one Gathering, in which Runner met Mottle.

It took a significant amount of time for the two to become close, but with Runner’s natural inclination towards making friends with every cat he met, he wouldn’t leave Mottle be until they finally began to grow close - and as soon as they hit that point, they crossed the line and their relationship ran. The two began sneaking away to meet as often as possible, with Runner beginning to neglect his duties more and more; he had never felt as though he fit within the Moorswept anyway, and Mottle’s descriptions of life in the Woodruff thrilled and entranced him, along with the tempting addition of being at one another’s sides all the time. Enraged by his brother’s lack of thought towards him, as Jumper had a tendency to allow his temper to blind his judgment, they ultimately had a heated confrontation, one that Jumper dragged out into the public eye of their faction, and straight to Magpietail.

Horrified and anxious by his brother’s actions, Runner was coaxed into the orator’s den to speak alone. When he came back out, after many many hours, he wouldn’t speak to Jumper - or anyone, for that matter. He stayed reserved, withdrawn, and his newfound personality lingered for the rest of that moon - up until the next Gathering, in which Magpietail and Songfall announced Runner’s acceptance into the Woodruff. Jumper was horrified, and desperately tried to stop his brother, but Runner snapped back at him, laying out his grievances with his brother: how he needed to stop hanging in Runner’s shadow, how he desperately wanted to feel accepted by more than just one cat in a whole faction, how he wished to stand and serve at the side of the cat he had fallen in love with. And how obviously, that wasn’t with Jumper.

Jumper replied by publicly scorning him and severing ties. Runner echoed the sentiment. Both toms cried themselves to sleep that night - with Runner close to Mottle’s side, and Jumper alone.

Upon receiving their full names, moons later, Runningflight requested to keep the prefix of his original faction. Even if he had found a new life, a better life, within the Woodruff, he still held pride in the name he had been given, and thus, wished to keep it. Meanwhile, Onewhisker asked for an entirely new name, one to symbolize that he was alone now, and how he would grow into something great alone, too.