#just in a god this better be another step in a much longer character arc sorta thing

[arolesbianism]

Impulsively read the most recent Kanade story and oh boy. Hooo boy. Thoughts and feelings

[youngmasterwisdomperson]

It occurs to me that the cosmere mechanics that went into making Moash into Vyre are equal and opposite to what turned a young Dalinar into the Blackthorn, and while under those influences they both did things that they would later regret. They both killed someone close to them, and in doing so severely and permanently hurt other people they loved. Moash as Vyre was completely emotionless, with Odium suppressing all his feelings of grief and guilt and rage and remorse, in what I can only assume to be an advanced and potent application of Soothing. In the name of achieving his goals, he put Kaladin through literal Damnation and murdered both Teft and his spren. And in the narration we can hear some deeply suppressed part of Moash reacting to this. This is Teft, he killed Teft, this is wrong! This should feel wrong! Even under the direct influence of a literal god, Moash’s very foundations trembled when he dealt that horrible blow. Dalinar, meanwhile, committed numerous atrocities under the Rioting influence of the Thrill, among them being that he burned down the city of Rathalas and killed Evi in the process. He regretted this so much that he literally had to have his memory of that event temporarily removed by the influence of yet another literal god in order to give himself time to improve himself in preparation for the inevitable re-realization of his actions.

They are equal and opposite. Push and pull. And neither can be fully excused from their actions, for though they were both being powerfully emotionally influenced at the time, they still had at least some level of agency as they did all those things. These characters are so similar and yet so different at the same time, and I find that fascinating! Thus far in his arc, Dalinar has been working hard to overcome his past mistakes and become a better man, but Moash, no longer Vyre, his opportunity for redemption has only just started to show itself. He has all of his emotions back now, and someone’s going to need to teach him the all-important lesson Dalinar learned the hard way, that the most important step a man can take is always the next one. In many ways Dalinar and Moash are foils, with parallel character arcs. Sure, they’re chronologically out of sync, but they’re following very similar beats thus far regardless.

I’ve heard it said that Moash would make a good Willshaper, with his initial motivation of freeing those in bondage and fighting against unjust power structures. And indeed, I think there’s some truth to that. But from all these parallels I’m seeing I wonder if he might be walking down a path towards becoming the third and final bondsmith? His biggest flaw so far in the story in my opinion is his unwillingness to take responsibility for things he regrets. Whenever he does something questionable, he refuses to go back on his own choices and doubles down. I think perhaps Moash could stand to learn how to unite instead of divide, and to take responsibility for what he’s done. You can’t have a journey without a beginning, after all.

[teamgalacticpropaganda]

Have I not talked about part 2 yet? It's time for me to talk about part 2!

Long post under here :

For starters, let me say my point about part 1 being total ass still applies. It was more Cynthia fanservice and 90% of what they talked about had zero relevancy to the actual thing. If they had released part 1 and 2 together, it would've been significantly better, but because it was released on it's own it made the Sinnoh arc look absolutely horrendous. The most Sinnoh content we had in received in Masters since basically launch, and it was by a long shot the worst.

So, did part 2 fix it? Yes! Oh my god! Part 2 is SO much better!!

Making it so Dawn didn't just fix everything in a minute was the first major improvement, that was one of my biggest issues with part 1- suddenly, the main issue was gone because she randomly found a legendary and made everything better! But they pulled a twist and said that actually, it did nothing, and everyone's asleep again. What's more, that Darkrai is even more powerful now, and perhaps not pursuing Cyrus and instead just letting Dawn and her flying croissant magic everything back to normal was a bad idea! Because they left him be, just as Cynthia did in the original event, he managed to gain more strength and even so close with Darkrai that he got a Sygna Suit out of it. We also see characters like Sycamore falling asleep too instead of just random NPCs this time. They fixed the ending of part 1 perfectly.

Another major issue with part 1, the mini arc they were beginning to bring up with the three commanders that then went nowhere is fully addressed and given plenty of attention here, with each commander even getting their own spotlight. Rather than turning their backs on him and calling them evil, they decide to try and help Cyrus, wanting to understand him. Notice how when the showdown with Cyrus did happen, none of the commanders even sent out their Pokémon? They're not here to fight him, they just wanted him back, not caring whether or not Cyrus saw them as tools to be used and then discarded. Even with everything they had been hearing about him, knowing his plan would lead to their deaths, they stayed by his side. The three of them never gave up on him. I love that they went down the route of the commanders trying to help Cyrus and give him a new goal rather than making them all betray him, even if it means that we don't get them playable for a while longer. What Cyrus needs is people who won't abandon him no matter what, and there they are. Genuinely, if we see Cyrus again and he's made even more steps towards change, it's very likely the commanders had something to do with it. This is also the second time that we've gotten an ending for Team Galactic where Cyrus and the commanders leave together! I'm willing to bet at some point, we'll get a line talking about how Cyrus would never admit it but he's gotta be attached to those three...

And let me highlight the moment between Saturn and Dawn here. Bringing up how selfless he is for Cyrus and how that's unhealthy was something I didn't think they'd do. They actually challenged a team admin's devotion to their leader. This obviously wouldn't phase the likes of Archer or Courtney, but for someone like Saturn? It's what he needed, and he'd listen too! Not only does it help him massively, but it helps him help Cyrus. We are on a one way train to that sweet sweet redemption arc and Saturn has now become the third subway brother (thanks Dawn)

Talking about the ending again- "Take care of Dialga." Once again, Cyrus effortlessly displaying that his words about not caring for people and Pokémon are lies. He's putting on this front of being unfeeling when you can see the way he cares for others. Even the fact how he took the commanders with him after all, calling them out one by one and by name, proves it further.

What a great ending.

Side note : Saturn slapping Looker was hilarious

[vickyvicarious]

Leverage Redemption Pros/Cons List

Okay! Now that I've finally finished watching the first half of Leverage: Redemption, I thought I'd kind of sum up my overall impression. Sort of a pro/con list, except a little more just loosely structured rambles on each bullet point rather than a simple list.

This got way out of hand from what I expected so I'm going to put it all under a cut. If you want the actual bulletpoint list, here it is:

PROS

References

Continuity

Nate

Representation

Themes

New Characters

General Vibe

CONS

'Maker and Fixer'

Episode Twins

Sophie's Stagefright

Thiefsome

You might notice the pros list is longer, and that's because I do love the show! I really like most of what it does, and my gripes are fewer in number and mostly smaller in size. But they do exist and I felt like talking about them as well as the stuff I loved.

PROS

References

There is clearly so much love and respect for the original show here. Quite aside from the general situation, there's a lot of references to individual episodes or character traits from the first show. For example, Parker's comments on disliking clowns, liking puppets, disliking horses, stabbing vs. tasing people. The tasing was an ongoing thing in the original, the stabbing happened once (S1) but was referenced later in the original show, the clown thing only had a few mentions scattered across the entire original show. The puppet thing was mentioned once in S5, and the horses thing in particular was only brought up in S1 once. But they didn't miss the chance to put the nod to it in there; in fact with those alone we see a good mix of common/ongoing jokes and smaller details.

We got "dammit Hardison" and "it's a very distinctive..." but also Eliot and Parker arguing about him catering a mob wedding, and Eliot being delighted by lemon as a secret ingredient in a dish in that same episode (another reference to the mob episode). Hardison and Eliot banter about "plan M", an ongoing joke starting from the very first episode of the original show. We see Sophie bring up Hardison's accent in the Ice Job, Parker also makes reference to an early episode when describing "backlash effect" to Breanna, in an episode that also references her brother slightly if you look for it.

Heck, the last episode of these first eight makes a big deal out of nearly reproducing the iconic opening lines of the original show with Fake Nate's "we provide... an advantage." And I mean, all the "let's go steal a ___" with Harry being confused about how to use them.

Some of the lines are more obviously references to the original show, but they strike a decent balance with smaller or unspoken stuff as well, and also mix in some references between the team to events we the audience have never seen. If someone was coming into this show for the first time, they wouldn't get all the easter egg joy but most of the references would stand on their own as dialogue anyway. In general, I think they struck a good balance of restating needed context for new viewers while still having enough standalone good lines and more-fun-if-you-get-it callbacks.

Continuity

Similar to the last point, but slightly different. The characters' development from the original to now is shown so well. I'm not going to go on about this too long, but the writers clearly didn't want to let the original characters stagnate during the offscreen years. There was a lot of real thought put into how they would change or not.

It's really written well. We can see just how cohesive a team Parker, Hardison, and Eliot became. We get a sense of how they've spent their time, and there's plenty of evidence that they remained incredibly close with Sophie and Nate until this past year. The way everyone defers to Parker is different from the original show and clearly demonstrates how she's been well established as the leader for years now - they show this well even as Parker is stepping back to let Sophie take point in these episodes. Eventually that is actually called out by Sophie in the eighth episode, so we might see more mastermind Parker in the back half of the show, maybe. But even with her leading, it's clear how collaborative the team has become, with everyone bouncing ideas off one another and adding their input freely. Sometimes they even get so caught up they leave the newbies completely in the dust. But for the most part we get a good sense of how the Parker/Hardison/Eliot team worked with her having final say on plans but the others discussing everything together. A little bit more collaborative than it was with Nate at the helm.

Meanwhile Sophie has built a home and is deeply attached to it. She and Nate really did retire, at least for the most part, and she was living her happy ending until he died. She's out of practice but still as skilled as ever, and we're shown how much her grief has changed her and how concerned the others are for her.

There's a lot of emphasis on how they all look after one another and the found family is clearer than ever. Sophie even calls Hardison "his father's son" - clearly referring to Nate.

Nate

Speaking of Nate! They handled his loss so, so well. His story was the most complete at the end of the last show, and just from a narrative point, losing him makes the most sense of all the characters. But the way he dies and his impact on the show and the characters continues. It's very respectful to who he was - who he truly was.

Nate was someone they all loved, but he was a deeply flawed individual. Sophie talks about how he burned too hot, but at least he burned - possibly implying to me that his drinking was related to his death. In any case, there's no mystery to it. We don't know how he died but that's not what's most important about his death. This isn't a quest for revenge or anything... it's just a study of grief and trying to heal.

Back to who he really was real quick - the show doesn't eulogize him as better than he was. They're honest about him. From the first episode's toast they raise in his memory, to the final episode where Sophie and Eliot are deeply confused by Fake Nate singing his praises, the team knows who he was. They don't erase his flaws... but at the same time he was so clearly theirs. He was family, he was the man they trusted and loved and followed into incredibly dangerous situations, and whose loss they all still feel deeply.

That said, the show doesn't harp on this point. They reference him, but they don't overwhelm new viewers with a constant barrage of Nate talk. It always serves a purpose, primarily for Sophie's storyline of moving through her grief. Anyway, @robinasnyder said all of this way better than me here, so go read that as well.

Representation

Or should I say, Jewish Hardison, Autistic Parker, Queer Breanna!

Granted, Hardison's religion isn't quite explicitly stated to be Jewish so much as he mentions that his "Nana runs a multi-denominational household", but nonetheless. He gets the shows big thesis statement moment, he gets a beautiful speech about redemption that is the emotional cornerstone of that episode and probably Harry's entire arc throughout the show. And while I'm not Jewish myself, most of what I've seen from Jewish fans is saying that Hardison's words here were excellent representation of their beliefs. (@featherquillpen does a great job in that meta of contextualizing this with his depiction in the original show as well.)

Autistic Parker, however, is shown pretty dang blatantly. She already was very much coded as autistic in the original show, but the reboot has if anything gone further. She sees a child psychologist because she likes using puppets to represent emotions, she stims, she uses cue cards and pre-written scripts for social interactions, there's mention of possible texture sensitivity and her clothes are generally more loose and comfortable. She's gotten better at performing empathy and understanding how people typically work, but it's specifically described as something she learned how to do and she views her brain as being different from ones that work that way (same link). Again, not autistic myself but from what I've seen autistic fans find a lot to relate to in her portrayal. And best of all, this well-rounded and respectful depiction does not show any of these qualities as a lack on her part. There's no more of those kinda ableist comments or "what's wrong with you" jokes that were in the original show. Parker is the way she is, and that allows her to do things differently. She's loved for who she is, and any effort made to fit in is more just to know how so that she can use it to her advantage when she wants to on the job - for her convenience, not others' comfort.

Speaking of loved for who you are.... okay, again, queer Breanna isn't confirmed onscreen yet, and I don't count Word of God as true canon. But I can definitely believe we're building there. Breanna dresses in a very GNC way, and just her dialogue and, I dunno, vibes seem very queer to me. She has a beautiful speech in the Card Game Job about not belonging or being accepted and specifically mentions "the way they love" as one of those things that made her feel like she didn't belong. And that scene is given so much weight and respect. (Not to mention other hints throughout the episode about how much finding her own space meant to her.) Also, the whole theme of feeling rejected and the key for her to begin really flourishing is acceptance for who she is, not any desire for her to be anyone else, is made into another big moment. Yeah, textually that moment is about her feeling like she has to fill Hardison's shoes and worrying about her past, but the themes are there, man.

Themes

I talked a bit about this yesterday, so I'm mostly just going to link to that post, but... this series so far is doing a really good job in my opinion of giving people arcs and having some good themes. Namely the redemption one, from Hardison's speech (which I'm gonna talk a little more about in the next point), and this overall theme of growing up and looking to the future (from above the linked post).

New Characters

Harry and Breanna are fantastic characters. I was kind of worried about Harry being a replacement Nate, but... he really isn't. Sure, he's the older white guy who has an angsty past but it's in a very different way and his personality and relationships with the rest of the crew are correspondingly different. I think the dynamic of a very friendly, cheerful, kind, but still bad guy (as @soundsfaebutokay points out) is a great one to show, and he's got a really cool arc I think of learning to be a better person, and truly understanding Hardison's point about redemption being a process not a goal. His role on the team also has some interesting applications and drawbacks, as @allegorymetaphor talked about. I've kind of grown to think that the show is gradually building up to an eventual Sophie/Harry romance a ways down the line, and I'm actually here for it. Regardless, his relationships with everyone are really interesting.

As for Breanna, first of all and most importantly I love her. Secondly, I think she's got a really interesting story. She's a link to Hardison's past, and provides a really interesting perspective for us as someone younger who has grown up a) looking up to Leverage and b) in a bleaker and more hopeless world. Breanna's not an optimist, and she's not someone who was self-sufficient and unconcerned with the rest of the world at the start, like everyone else. She believes that the world sucks and she wants it to be better, but she doesn't know how to make that happen. She outright says she's desperate and that's why she's working with Leverage. At the same time, Breanna is pretty down on herself and wants to prove herself but gets easily shaken by mistakes or being scolded, which is a stark contrast to Hardison's general self-confidence. There are several times when she starts to have an idea then hesitates to share it, or expects her emotions to be dismissed, or gets really disheartened when she's corrected or rejected, or dwells on her mistakes, or when she is accepted or praised she usually takes a surprised beat and is shy about it (she almost always looks down and away from the person, and her smile is often small or startled). Breanna looks up to the team so much (Parker especially, then probably Eliot) and she wants to prove herself. It's going to be so good to see her grow.

General Vibe

A brief note, but it seems a fitting one to end on. The show keeps it's overall tone and feeling from the original show. The fun, the competency porn, the bad guys and clever plans and happy endings. It's got differences for sure, but the characters are recognizably themselves and the show as a whole is recognizably still Leverage. For the most part they just got the feeling right, and it's really nice.

CONS (no, not that kind)

'Maker and Fixer'

So when I started writing this meta earlier today, I was actually a lot more annoyed by the lack of unique 'maker' skills being shown by Breanna. Basically the only time she tries to use a drone, the very thing she introduced herself as being good at, it breaks instantly. I was concerned about her being relegated into just doing what Hardison did, instead of bringing her own stuff to the table. But the seventh episode eased some of those fears, and the meta I just wrote for someone else asking about Breanna's 'maker' skills as shown this season made me realize there's more nuance than that. I'd still like to have seen more of that from her, but for now the fact that we don't see a lot of 'maker' from her so far seems more like a character decision based in Breanna's insecurities.

Harry definitely gets more 'inside man' usage. His knowledge as a 'fixer' comes in handy several times. Nonetheless, I'm really curious if there are any bigger ways to use it, aside from him just adding in some exposition/insight from time to time. I'm not even entirely sure how much more they can pull from this premise in terms of relevant skills, but I hope there's more and I'd like to see it. Maybe a con built more around him playing a longer role playing his old self, like they tried in the Tower Job? Maybe it's more a matter of him needed distance from that part of his past, being unable to face it without lashing out - in that case it could be a good character growth moment possibly for him to succeed in being Scummy Lawyer again down the line? I dunno.

Episode Twins

This was something small that kind of bothered me a little earlier in the season. It's kind of the negative side to the references, I guess? And I'm not even sure how much it annoys me really, but I just kinda noticed and felt sort of weird about it.

Rollin' on the River has a lot of references/callbacks to the The Wedding Job.

The Tower Job has a lot of references/callbacks to The White Rabbit Job.

The Paranormal Hacktivity Job has a lot of references/callbacks to the Future Job.

I guess I was getting a little concerned that there would be a 'match this episode' situation where almost every new Redemption episode is very reminiscent of an old one. I love the callbacks, but I don't want to see a lack of creativity in this new show, and this worried me for a minute. Especially when it was combined with all three of those episodes dealing with housing issues of some kind. Now, that's a huge concern for a lot of people, and each episode has its own take on a different problem within that huge umbrella, but it still got me worried about a lack of variety in topics/cases.

The rest of the episodes failing to line up so neatly in my head with older episodes helped a lot to ease this one, though. Still, this is my complaining section so I figured I'd express my concerns as they were at the time. Even if I no longer really worry about it much.

Sophie's Stagefright

Yeah, I know this is just a small moment in a single episode, but it annoyed me! Eliot made a bit of a face at Sophie going onstage, but I thought it was just him being annoyed at the general situation. However, they started out with her being awful up there until she realized the poem was relevant to the con - at which point her reading got so much better.

This felt like a complete betrayal of Sophie's beautiful moment at the end of the original show where she got over her trouble with regular acting and played Lady Macbeth beautifully in front of a full theater of audience members. This was part of the con, but only in the sense that it gave her an alibi/place to hide, and I always interpreted it as her genuinely getting over her stagefright problems. It felt like such a beautiful place to end her arc for that show, especially after all her time spent directing.

Now, her difficulty onstage in the Card Game Job was brief and at the very beginning of being up on stage. @rinahale suggested to me that maybe it was a deliberate tactic to draw the guy's attention, and the later skill was simply her shifting focus to make the sonnet easier for Breanna to listen to and interpret, but he seemed more enraptured when she was doing well than otherwise in my opinion and it just doesn't quite sit well with me. My other theory was that maybe she just hasn't been up on stage in a long time, and much like she complaining about being rusty at grifting before the team pushed her into trying, she got nervous for a moment at the very beginning. The problem there is that I think she'd definitely still get involved in theater even when she and Nate were retired. I guess she could've quit after he died, and a year might be long enough to make her doubt herself again, but... still.

I just resent that they even left it ambiguous at all. Sophie's skills should be solid on stage at this point in my opinion.

Thiefsome

...And now we come to my main complaint. This is, by far, the biggest issue I have with the show.

I feel like I should put a disclaimer here that I had my doubts from the beginning about the thiefsome becoming canon onscreen. I thought the famous "the OT3 is safe" tweet could easily just mean that they are all still alive and well, or all still working together, without giving us confirmation of a romantic relationship. Despite this, the general fandom expectations/hopes really got to me, especially with the whole "lock/pick/key" thing. I tried to temper my expectations again when the character descriptions came out and only mentioned Hardison loving Parker, not Eliot, but I still got my hopes up.

The thing is, I was disappointed pretty quickly.

The very first episode told me that in all likelihood we would never see Hardison and Parker and Eliot together in a romantic sense. Oh, there was so much coding. So much hinting. So much in the way of conversations that were about Parker/Hardison's relationship but then Eliot kept getting brought into them. They were portrayed as a unit of three.

But then there was this.

I love all of those scenes of Parker and Hardison being intimate and loving and comfortable with one another and their relationship. I really do. But it didn't escape my notice that there's nothing of the sort with Eliot. If they wanted a canon onscreen thiefsome, it would by far make the most sense to just have it established from the start. But there aren't any scenes where Eliot shares the same kind of physical closeness with either of them like they do each other. Parker and Hardison kiss; he doesn't kiss anyone. They have several clearly romantic conversations when alone; he gets important conversations with both but the sense of it being romantic isn't there.

Establishing Eliot as part of the relationship after Hardison is gone just... doesn't make any sense. It would be more likely to confuse new viewers, to make them wonder if Parker is cheating on Hardison with Eliot, or if they have a Y shaped relationship rather that a triangle. It would be so much clumsier.

Still, up until the Double-Edged-Sword Job I believed the writers might keep it at this level of 'plausible hinting but not quite saying'. There's a lot of great stuff with all of them, and I never expecting making out or whatever anyway; a cheek-kiss was about the height of my hopes to be honest. I mostly just hoped for outright confirmation and, failing that, I was happy enough to have the many hints and implications.

But then Marshal Maria Shipp came along. And I don't really have anything against her as a character - in fact, I think she has interesting story potential and will definitely come back. But the episode framed her fight with Eliot as a sexyfight TM, much like his fight with Mikel back in the day. And then his flirting with her rode the line a little of "he's playing her for the con" and "he's genuinely flirting." The scene where he tells her his real name is particularly iffy, but actually was the one that convinced me he was playing her. Because he seems to be watching her really closely, and to be very concerned about her figuring out who he really is. I am very aware though that I'm doing a lot of work to interpret it the way I want. On surface appearance, Eliot's just flirting with an attractive woman, like he did on the last show. And that's probably the intention, too.

But the real nail in the coffin for me was when Sophie compared herself and Nate to Eliot and Maria. That was a genuine scene, not the continuation of the teasing from before. And Sophie is the one whose insight into people is always, always trustworthy. She is family to the thiefsome. For this to make any sense, either Eliot/Parker/Hardison isn't a thing, or they are and Sophie doesn't know - and I can't imagine why in the hell she wouldn't know.

Any argument to make them still canon leaves me unsatisfied. If she knows and they haven't admitted it to her - why wouldn't they, after all this time? Why would she not have picked up on it even without an outright announcement? Some people suggested they wouldn't admit it because they thought Nate would be weird about it, but that doesn't seem any more in character to me than the other possibilities. In fact, the only option that doesn't go against my understanding of these people and their observational abilities/the close relationship they share.... is that the thiefsome is not a thing.

And furthermore, the implication of this conversation - especially the way it ended, with Eliot stomping off looking embarrassed while Sophie smiled knowingly - is that Eliot will get into another relationship onscreen. Maybe not a full-blown romantic relationship. But the Maria Shipp tension is going to be resolved somehow, and at this point I'm half-expecting a hook-up simply because of Sophie's reaction and how much I trust her judgement of such things. Even if she's letting her grief cloud her usual perceptiveness... it feels iffy.

It just kinda feels like I wasn't even allowed to keep my "interpret these hints/maybe they are" thiefsome that I expected after the first couple episodes convinced me we wouldn't get outright confirmation. (I mean, I will anyway, and I love the hints and allusions regardless.) And while I'm definitely not the kind of fan who is dependent on canon for my ships, and still enjoy all their interactions/will keep right on headcanoning them all in a relationship, it's just.... a bummer.

Feels like a real cop-out. Like the hints of Breanna being queer are enough to meet their quota and they won't try anything 'risky' like a poly relationship. I dunno. It's annoying.

.

That's the end of the list! Again, overall I love the new show a lot and have few complaints.

[gakkubi]

Ame Trio Analysis: Konan

I want to share some thoughts on the Ame Trio/Ame Orphans because I do think they have one of the most complex, interesting and beautiful arcs in the Narutoverse. I will discuss their personalities and thoughts. This post is about Konan, there are also Yahiko and Nagato. (3/3): I'll end with Konan because she's the one who lives the longer and is impacted by both Yahiko and Nagato's death.

KONAN:

Also available in Russian: ссылка на русский перевод

Konan is possibly the hardest character to analyse because her stand-alone arc is the last one to appear, and the story doesn't dwell on her ideals and motivations until the very end - despite that, it's my personal belief she's one of the best female characters developed in the series. With a few exceptions, female characters in the Narutoverse will usually take the position of supporting the male characters - but unlike most of the other women, Konan's position of support actually makes sense with her character.

A person not being the "original creator" of the philosophy they follow or joining other characters to achieve a common goal does not mean they don't have a mind or will of their own; Konan is just as free to make her own decisions as the other characters.

While Yahiko takes the role of "fallen hero" and Nagato is the "unwilling protagonist", Konan is the ever-present observer; she's the last one to take the spotlight in the Ame Trio storyline, and with her, the last open ends are closed. Konan is the element which endured throughout all of the Ame Trio's different phases, from their start to their brightest and darkest points until the very end. She's the Angel, the one who will carry and reinforce the will she has received.

Konan has a moral trait which makes her strikingly different from Yahiko and Nagato; she is not loyal to abstract ideals, but rather concrete ones. Even though Yahiko and Nagato eventually digress on their philosophies, both dedicate their lives to the pursuit of peace and give up their lives to guarantee the survival of their goal, as abstract as it may be.

Konan, on the other hand, is loyal to people; of course she had beliefs of her own, but they mostly come from a local perspective, not a universal one. She's loyal to Amegakure; to her country, to her people, her citizens, her friends.

It's heavily implied in the story (more in the anime than the manga) that the people of Amegakure held her in high esteem (perhaps even more than they held Pain himself). This shines a new light on Konan, who early on the story was just an unknown villain of the Akatsuki - in fact, we come to learn most of the important aspects of her personality lie outside of the classic, evil Akatsuki.

To understand Konan it's important to understand the Ame Trio's dynamic as a whole; it's fundamental to consider that, just like Nagato, Konan owes her life to Yahiko's fierce will of surviving- her backstory alone with Yahiko is never shown but it's heavily implied that she was just as dependent on him as Nagato was. Like Nagato, her personality is much more passive and quiet until provoked.

Both Konan and Nagato were Yahiko's followers, and they were happy that way - they believed in his dream and his philosophy and found in the Akatsuki the meaning of their lives. It's important to understand that Yahiko's goals are also her goals, regardless if she was the one who created them or not; it's better to say he first inspired her into creating such dreams for herself.

Many other (very popular and loved) characters in the Naruto universe follow dreams and philosophies not originally created by themselves and are not perceived as mere "followers without opinion" like Konan sometimes is.

A common reason for the misunderstanding of Konan's character to claim she has no will of her own is that she continued to support Nagato even though he suffers an immense personality and philosophical shift after Yahiko's death. It's often wondered why Konan decided to stay by Nagato's side after Yahiko's death despite his radical change, and it's often associated with her having no ideas of her own. This is not true; the story builds a very logical and realistic reason for her to continue supporting him regardless of her truly agreeing with his new peace philosophy.

Very much like Nagato, Konan saw the people she loved and her reasons to live be taken away from her twice. The first time, it was Yahiko who gave both of them meaning and direction; the second time Nagato and Konan found themselves having nothing again - all they had was the legacy Jiraiya and Yahiko left behind.

Konan's life was saved by Yahiko twice; first when he helped her survive and second when he sacrificed himself so she could escape Hanzo's trap. It's important to realize the reason why Hanzo could trap Yahiko and Nagato is that they captured her first; although we have no evidence for this, it's possible Konan also felt guilt for "giving" the enemy a token to which they could manipulate Yahiko into obedience.

Yahiko being a key factor on her survival (both physical and mental) and her feeling responsible for his death are both factors that could result in her feeling immense guilt and a sense of debt with him. Like Nagato, Konan couldn't just let Yahiko's death be pointless after giving up his life for them.

Any reasonable person would have their hope shaken after seeing Yahiko get killed after his "non-violence, mutual understanding" philosophy failed. It would take an enormous endurance and faith to lose a person who she loved and keep on trying the same thing with the hope that "next time things will work as intended." Perhaps, things would never work as Yahiko imagined - perhaps his original plan needed adaptations.

However, unlike Nagato, Konan hadn't been conditioned by either Jiraiya or Yahiko to think that she was the one who would find the key to peace; she didn't spend her life pressured by the responsibility of coming up with a plan. Nagato was the one who the former leaders trusted would find the answer to end all the wars - and he stepped up to continue the "plan to peace" with his new ideas of how to get there.

And there's yet another important factor in all this; Yahiko had left her with a mission - the mission of supporting Nagato. The conversation where Yahiko entitles her with the responsibility of being by Nagato's side is highlighted in her fight against Obito to tell us, the audience, why Konan is so determined to help Naruto now - her mission of protecting the "savior of the world", originally given by Yahiko, had been transferred from supporting Nagato to Naruto.

Once we see the perspective of her feeling like she was in debt with Yahiko for saving her life twice - and adding love and guilt to the mixture, which makes it much harder for reason to overpower emotion -, it's easy to see why it could be hard to nearly impossible for her to dismiss the last mission she could actually complete; following Yahiko's will was a way of still being connected to him after he was gone.

Both Nagato and Konan nearly lost the meaning of their lives when Yahiko was killed and the original Akatsuki destroyed - both clinged to what they had left. Neither ever had a proper environment to deal with the grief they felt, a grief that echoed a childhood trauma that shaped all of their lives.

All of these factors are reasons why it would be hard for Konan to look objectively at what she was doing by supporting Nagato's new philosophy; however, Konan wasn't just guilt trapped into being by his side.

Konan, as I stated before, is much more pragmatic than her counterparts; she's loyal to what is hers - her friends, her nation. Even if we ignore the guilt or the "mission", it's safe to assume she would have stayed by his side anyway; Nagato was all the family she had left, and she was loyal to what was hers above all else.

Perhaps, if the mental conditions weren't so harsh, Konan could have resisted or opposed some of Nagato's new radical ideas more than she already did - debated with him, perhaps they could have convinced each other to stay in Yahiko's path. In the anime, Obito even says he relied on Konan for "calming" Nagato, which tells us that she reasoned with him to some extent - however, neither of them were able to keep their pain from overriding the morals they previously had.

Konan has a mind of her own, and it's shown to us in the moments where she disagrees either visually or verbally with Nagato's actions; Jiraiya's death, Konoha's destruction and the conversation with Naruto are moments where she confronts him. She is shown disagreeing with Nagato on multiple instances, which is proof that she felt she could voice her discontent with him - that she didn't feel completely trapped by guilt or that all she had to do was simply obey him; she was not just a voiceless "Angel" obeying her "God." We're also shown that Nagato disregards many of her opinions - by the time he becomes a villain, he is extremely narcissistic and confident in his hability to make the right choice - but that doesn't keep her from voicing her disagreement anyway.

It's not clear to us, the audience, how much Konan was hurt by Nagato's disregard (we're shown she is uncomfortable to some extent); it's the combination of her guilt, Yahiko's "mission" and her own faith in Nagato's plan that keeps her following their goal.

All the members of the Ame Trio value the search for peace above everything else, each in their own particular way.

Unlike Nagato, Konan has a much clear and objective way of thinking, interested only in what will serve them to achieve their goal and dismissing everything else that will not be useful.

Konan is never shown having any interest whatsoever in the other members of the Akatsuki (she never engages in the conversations they have), in the people of Konoha (which is why she condones wasting energy on being violent with them) or even in what Naruto has to say. All that she cares about is what is hers - her nation, her family; she's completely indifferent to everything else.

(That being said, I must note we don't know how her relationships with the other Akatsuki work as it would be impossible for her to spend almost 20 years without interacting with the other members. One of Konan's most important traits is her kindness, so it's "in character" to assume she would treat them respectfully and kindly, being fond of them to some extent; it's also safe to assume she didn't care about them at all, given her behavior in the manga. I think both interpretations are equally canonical because they lean on different aspects of her personality to fill a backstory we're never shown).

Although Konan is never shown being especially inclined to violence, her indifference and disergard for everything that is not hers - together with her own belief on Nagato's plan and the suffering which she endured - allows her to be the cold-blooded leader and killer she eventually becomes.

Konan believed in Nagato - like both Jiraiya and Yahiko did - while recognizing his flaws. When Naruto received recognition and acceptance from Nagato, he was incorporated to Konan's definition of what is "hers"; she aligns him in a sequence of "saviors" who she believed, a sequence that began with Yahiko and continued with Nagato. She makes the conscious decision of giving up her life for her dream of peace as Yahiko and Nagato have done before her.

Obito is the example of a person who Konan never incorporated on what is "hers" - this is clear on their fight where she says she studied his moves and his powers all the years they have worked together, and also clear on the passive-aggressive conversation they have after Jiraiya's death (Chapter 407). The way their relationship works - especially considering that she spent approximately half of her life working with him - also shows that Konan doesn't blindly support other characters for the sake of supporting them; for all we know, she trusted him much less than Nagato did.

It's also in Konan's fight with him that we see her analytical intelligence at full bloom - I dare say she is the most intelligent of the trio when it comes to strategy; first, for not ever truly trusting Obito to begin with (possibly because Yahiko also didn't), and second for being able to set a strategy that effectively killed him (hence why he used Izanagi - he was killed by her) with information based on her own observations.

Konan is extremely careful and precise; she pays incredible attention to detail, being able to draw accurate conclusions after analyzing just a little information.

Konan isn't ever shown to be hateful or angry, with the exception of her encounter with Jiraiya, where she treats him with spite, taunting him with the idea that following Orochimaru's suggestion could have avoided all the trouble he was going through with the Akatsuki. It's one of the few times we see Konan treating anyone in a way that is not kind or neutral, as if she held some type of resentment against Jiraiya - I like to think she blamed him, in a way or another, for not preparing them well enough for the cruelty of the world; for letting them be so naïve that Yahiko could be killed in a trap easily avoidable. It's obvious that Konan still held Jiraiya in some regard as it's easier for people to lash out on those who they like the most - after many years interacting with people to whom she was completely indifferent (outside of Nagato), Konan was finally talking to a person she had feelings for.

She is also - as described by Jiraiya and also viewed on the characters memories - a very kind, gentle, caring person; the very fact that she chose to save Nagato by sharing food with him shows her predisposition to helping others. Her kindness wasn't lost after Yahiko's death, but mostly replaced by the indifference she felt at everything that did not contemplate her goals, her family or her nation. After she accepts Naruto as being "one of her own" and sharing goals with him, she's quick to display kindness towards him and indirectly make amends with Jiraiya in the process.

As quiet, introspective person, Konan is very self-sufficient; although she is a member of the Akatsuki, she only interacts with them when necessary, probably spending most of her time alone or caring for Amegakure's business (as she shared both Akatsuki and Amegakure's leadership with Nagato and he was more active with the Akatsuki, it's safe to assume she cared for the other half). Her quiet, calmer nature matches that of Nagato; they could find understanding by having similar thought processes and also having a harder time processing their feelings, finding sympathy and comfort in each other.

Although I have mentioned that Konan might have felt a sense of debt towards Yahiko for saving her life, I want to highlight I see this feelings as possible only after his death because of its traumatizing circumstances; I don't think she felt she owed him anything while they were all alive, especially because it's never shown that he ever demanded such recognition. Yahiko and Konan have very distinct energies and personalities that complete each other, their relationship has a strong foundation because they share the same core beliefs and traits; loyalty and faith. I can see her falling in love with him for many reasons and one of them being by her admiring how hard he works to achieve the goal of peace.

Konan is a person that feels gentle and kind towards life as a whole; she doesn't seem to need much to be happy - as a child she made origami to pass time and have fun (and eventually used her intelligence to turn her passion into power); as an adult, the anime dedicates a scene to show her smiling to the rain while thinking of happy memories - happy for the sake of being in peace with the new direction she was taking her life after she and Nagato found someone to believe in again.

(Edit: Unfortunately I could not add another image to the post to illustrate this comment, but I wanted to talk about one aspect of Konan's personality that I like a lot and also forgot to mention. Despite her collected and serious demeanor, she also has a tendency to taunt people, a bit similar to Nagato's taste for ironic jokes. This is shown just a few times. In chapter 373, when Yahiko says he will save Nagato the next time something happens, Konan makes fun of him by remarking that Nagato is actually stronger than him, and she laughs when he gets annoyed. As I showed before, she also provokes Jiraiya with the hypothesis of things being better if Orochimaru had killed them. In her fight with Obito, despite his clear disinterest in what she was saying, Konan goes on to explain why Nagato and her betrayed him, and why he will never win. During the Water on a Frog's Face Training with Jiraiya she's also shown laughing at Yahiko's clumsiness. In my opinion, the way she evidently enjoys herself when she mocks people is strikingly contrasting to her generally unaffected personality, and personally I like that most of those times Yahiko was involved. Both in the anime, because of the animation, and in the manga because of Yahiko's surprise, I'm also under the impression that she was the one to initiate their kiss).

All of the Rain Trio's characters have very distinct and interesting psychologies; personally, I find Konan to be the most complex one because of the extreme discrepancies she displays, sometimes warm and kind, sometimes extremely cold and indifferent. I think the way she seems to only care about a very limited aspect of things is very attractive, as it shows how focused she is on her goals - as a nonviolent person, the most cruel act of Konan as a villain comes from her apathy to everyone else that is not part of what is "hers." Unlike Nagato and most of the other members of the Akatsuki who actively indulge in vile acts, she simply pursues her goals, removing anything and anyone on her way.

When he watch Konan's childhood, we see a child that is kind and light-hearted despite of all the pain she has endured, and only after being inflicted by yet another wave of suffering Konan's empathy and hope are shaken to the core; however, we learn her feelings were not dead but rather dormant, and it's by reconnecting to her core traits and beliefs that she finally finds peace in the very end.

[immersional]

eight - c!wilbur (dream smp)

genre: angst ):

word count: 1454

warnings: blood, character death, explosions, fighting, dream smp election arc & wilbur’s downfall

authors note: uHm so this is my first time ever posting my writing on tumblr… this is genuinely probably the worst thing you’ll ever read so that’s just a preface. also I didn’t know exactly what to put for like - the warnings - so if anyone could help me with those that’d be great! all that aside, i hope u enjoy ): i REALLY recommend listening to eight by sleeping at last whilst reading this! ALSO i didn’t proofread it so if it’s bad or has grammatical errors I am very sorry.

****

I remember the minute,

It was like a switch was flipped - 

“Tommy, I am a slow-burning fuse. I am a long, slow-burning fuse, but I’m telling you now, over the next couple of weeks, I’m gonna be a different man the one Schlatt crossed.” 

Sounds, sounds of joy and celebration, infiltrated my ears as we clambered to the top of the hill and stared down at the very inauguration that we were dismissed from. Although, some may say, less ‘dismissed’ and more ‘chased away by an entire city with fire arrows and netherite swords’. 

Tommy was speaking from his spot beside me, but the words failed to register as I observed the way Niki slid away from the function and began making the journey back to her bakery. The way she furiously wiped at her eyes as she cautiously checked behind her was a painful reminder that she could no longer feel safe in her own country. 

How did this happen? We won the war. We won our freedom. Now we had nothing. 

God that was so long ago, long ago, long ago…

I was little, I was weak and perfectly naive,

And I grew up too quick.

“I know you’re scared, Tommy, I understand you’re scared. And it’s scary! It’s scary Tommy, but you know what? In a time like this, when a man has nothing to lose, do you know what that means? It means we can do what we want.” The laugh that exited my chapped lips was dark; I could tell by the look on Tommy’s face that he was taken aback by my words. 

He stuttered. “Wilbur, I don’t know what you’re trying to say but-”

“Have you not noticed? Everyone who is claiming to be on our side, they’re lying to us! Tubbo?! He’s lying to you! He would drop us the second he realises we’re not in the lead anymore.” 

“No, no! STOP IT!”

It was a mixture of unexpected and expected, the fist that flew across my face. As I fell to the solid concrete floor of the ravine I realised that Tommy was still in denial. He still believed there was a route we could take ending with us regaining L’Manburg and going back to the way things were before Schlatt came into power. 

“You’re being reckless, Wilbur.” It took me a few minutes to focus on the hand reaching out to me, but in a few fleeting moments I was back on my feet with Tommy watching me with a hard stare. “You’re not the man that came in as president.” 

Another dark chuckle. “I told you, Tommy. What did I say to you the night we were exiled from L’Manburg? I said I was a slow-burning fuse, and right now I’m closer than ever to exploding.”

I’m all in, palms out, I’m at your mercy now and I’m ready to begin.

“Do you know what happens to traitors, Tubbo? Nothing good.” 

Tommy was visibly shaking. A crossbow, wielded by Technoblade, was pointed straight at Tubbo’s forehead. One shot, one life lost. 

The button.

Without another thought, my legs began carrying me from the top of the building and down to the mountains behind L’Manburg. Chaos was ensuing behind me, but that was fine. It could all be fixed by the button. The button connected to stacks upon stacks of TNT underneath the country I built from the ground up. 

My fingers clawed urgently at the dirt as sweat began to gather in beads on my forehead; grime and filth began to cover my body as I raked through the mountain in search of the room. Where was the button?

What seemed like hours, but was only minutes, passed by before my arms gave out and I collapsed against the mountainside. It hurt to breathe and the rain began pouring from the sky, battering down on me like a thousand punches. 

I laid there until I heard the distant cries of the citizens of L’Manburg. A L’Manburg that was no longer mine. My unfinished symphony.

And I’ll give all I have, I’ll give my blood, give my sweat - 

An ocean of tears will spill for what is broken. 

Blood coated the floor from where my knees were being cut open by the cobblestone. My breathing was uneven and my nails were leaving deep red indents on my palms. With every sound, sounds of joys and celebration, that filtered down through the walls, I came one step closer to pushing the button. 

Would it even work? Was the TNT even connected anymore? My battered hand hovered sadly over the wooden square. 

“The thing that I built this nation for doesn’t exist anymore. Th-The thing that I worked towards… doesn’t exist anymore. It’s over.”

A gust of wind swept through the room. “What are you doing?” 

I didn’t need to turn my head to know who was behind me. He’d come to persuade me to make the ‘right’ decision, the ‘better’ decision; just like Tommy had endeavoured towards many times before. 

“Do you know what this button is?” My voice was shaky, and it was then I realised my eyes were beginning to cloud and become blurry. “Have you heard the song? On the walls? Have you heard the song. I was just thinking that there was a special place where men could go, but it’s not there anymore. You know?

Footsteps. “It still is there. You just won it back, Wil!” 

“Phil.” I spun around to face him, and by the look in his eyes I saw that I was nothing but the shell of the boy he watched grow up. “I’m always so close to pressing this button, Phil. I’ve been here - like - seven or eight times now.” 

Fireworks began to go off outside, followed by terrified screams and the clanks of swords being unsheathed. They were fighting. Ten minutes ago, they were rejoicing in the face of a new government and now they were trying to kill each other? 

“You fought so hard to get this land back… you fought so hard.” He was pleading, begging at this point to get me to change my mind. Phil was trying so hard to coerce me to leave the room, remove the TNT and go back to the way things were.

Nothing would ever go back to the way things used to be. If nothing changed, then history would just continue to repeat itself. Although I could hear Phil speaking to me, it seemed like the button was speaking louder. Pleading, begging me to press it and end everyone’s suffering once and for all. End my suffering once and for all. 

“Phil…” I turned away from him for the last time. “There was a saying Phil. By a traitor. A traitor who used to be a part of L’Manburg - Eret?” With every word spoken, I felt my throat begin to close up.

 “He had a saying, Phil,” A sharp exhale. “It was never meant to be.”

There was a moment. A moment that I thought it hadn’t worked. Had Tommy or Dream removed the TNT? What if Schlatt had realised and gotten rid of it before he died? 

An incredible amount of thoughts ran across my mind, but they came to a halt when the first piece of TNT went off. As the city I created and once ruled began to detonate, as the bawls of the citizens of L’Manburg increased and became fiercer, I just threw my head back in euphoria. 

The ground shuddered and broke beneath my knees. Phil’s exclamations of horror were heard behind me as the button room was unveiled to the perplexed and panic-stricken faces of old acquaintances, friends and enemies. Tommy’s eyes were wide and full of tears as he gaped at the damage the explosion had done. Niki’s face held an expression of extreme despair whilst she fought to pull a distraught Tubbo away from the massacre. 

As the smoke began to drift up from the rubble, I quickly realised that my job was done. 

‘Phil, kill me. Kill me, Phil.” I pulled out the diamond sword I carried with me and slid it towards the man who’d raised me. “Stab me with this sword, murder me now, kill me. They all want you to, so do it.”

“I- You’re my SON!” 

“Look at how much work went into this.” Ignoring the searing pain from my bloody knees, I stood and gestured towards the broken country. “Look how much time and effort went into this and it’s gone. Do it. Do it.”

Wilbur Soot was slain by Philza

Now you won’t see all that I had to lose,

And all I’ve lost in the fight to protect it.

[silma-words]

Hey if you’re still accepting prompts then can you do #2 and #19 from prompt list 1

N/A: Thank you so much for the prompts Anon, and sorry for the delay! I hope you will like this, and that you are ready for some angst! :)

~~~~~

Choices: Bloodbound

Pairing: Adrian Raines x MC (Ellie)

Rating: PG / Warning: None

Genre: Angst

AU Chronology: Bloodbound AU (after book 1 – the events of book 2 never happened) – ‘Inevitable - Arc II: About time’ (Masterlist) - Sequel to "The right thing to do" and “Seventy-two”.

Summary: She was ready to leave everything behind, but Adrian shows up at her door step.

Inspired by prompts #2 and #19 from Prompt List #1: 2: “Please don’t cry. I can’t stand to see you cry”; 19: “I think I’m in love with you, and that scares the crap out of me”

Words: 2900

**Disclaimer: Characters and background plot are the property of Pixelberry.**

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

Picking up the pieces

What the hell was he doing here? Why now? Why did it take him that long to do what she had been hoping he would for over two months? What was he expecting of her? Drop all of her plans and crawl back to him after he had shattered her heart?

Unable to control the flow of questions that were rushing through her head, Ellie was shaking. Her back still against the door that she had quickly shut in Adrian’s face after finding him crouching on her doorstep, she could not stop the flow of tears either.

It had been so hard for her to wrap her mind around Adrian’s unilateral decision to end whatever was blooming between them and find a way to pull herself together, she now felt dragged back to that night in his apartment where he had delivered the blow. Just like that night, she felt her body being twisted and pulled apart in every direction from the inside, confusion mingling with anger, hurt, heartbreak, and love.

Why did he have to come back here and plunge another knife into the wound had barely started to heal? Wasn’t she doing what he wanted? He wanted her to chase her dreams and get out in the world without him tying her back, and that was what she was forcing herself to do. That’s why she had decided to take a leap and try her luck away from America, on neutral ground. Why would he change his mind now that she was about to leave? Had he always expected her to remain in his midst, close enough so she would never forget him? Close enough for him to reach her if he ever changed his mind? Or had he been waiting for her to come back to him all along?

*Ellie… please… Please come home… I miss you*

The sound of Adrian’s voice from the other side of the door tore through her. It brushed aside the million questions that had been invading her head as it reminded her how defeated he had looked at her feet in the corridor just a few minutes before. It was such a clear contrast with the resignation that she had read in his eyes the night he had delivered the blow.

She had believed him when he had claimed that this decision had been difficult for him as much as for her, but somehow part of her had tried to convince herself that he did not want her as much as she wanted him. That he had known that she was in it deeper than he was, and had been kind enough to end it before she relied on him too much. He had never hinted as much, but to her, it made more sense and hurt a little less than to believe that he had been really willing to sacrifice what they had just to give her a chance at a normal, mortal life. He had claimed he wanted her safe. But safe from the dangers of supernatural beings, or safe from the heartbreak that he would inevitably cause her?

Now that he was here, begging for her to come back to him, she was even more lost than when he had left her with no hope to convince him to let her stay. Her entire body physically ached at the thought of Adrian waiting desperately for her to answer his plea. But the idea of facing him filled her with dread.

Would she be strong enough to push him away? Did she want to? Would she even be able to reason properly and decide what to do with him standing before her?

She could feel his presence behind her despite the wooden door separating them. It was heavy. It was familiar. It was tearing a hole through her chest at the thought that he might turn around and leave before she could hear what he had to say. She could not ignore him a minute longer.

Drawing a deep breath, she wiped the tears from her cheeks, straightened herself and fumbled with the lock with trembling hands, bracing herself as she slowly opened the door. The guilt and yearning that she found in his eyes the second their eyes met drew her breath away, as if she had taken a punch straight to her guts. As much as she had wanted him to hurt as much as she did, it was a sight that made it all even worse. God, she cared way too much for that man.

“Adrian, I…” she started feebly, not sure what she really wanted to say. “I don’t understand what you want from me… I did as you asked…”

His silence was terrifying. He did not seem able to move away from the door frame, staring at her in shock as if his earlier plea behind the door had stunned him as much as it had her. Or was he surprised that she had accepted to face him, one last time?

“Adrian, please…. You have to explain, I… I… what the hell do you want?”. She had aimed her last words to be sharp and assertive, but they only came out as a desperate whisper. That seemed enough to shake him from his trance.

Closing the space between them, he wrapped his arms around her without a word, cradling her against his chest so tightly that she thought he might crush her. He let out a heavy sigh, burying his nose in her hair and swaying them both gently from side to side, as if trying to shake a nightmare away. A nightmare that they had both shared and were desperately trying to wake up from.

Ellie wanted nothing more than to let him sooth that ache away and forget all about the past two months. She would have never thought that the feel of his body against hers and the scent of him surrounding her could have so much power, stronger than any balm, any medicine, or any drug that had ever been designed to relieve unbearable pain. She felt like she could just fall asleep right there, lulled by the vibrations of his heartbeat and by the way his chest was heaving against her ear with every dragged breath that he took.

“I am so sorry, Ellie…” he finally spoke, a soft whisper blowing through her hair.

*I am sorry*. Words that she had been craving to hear from his lips but that now sounded like a joke to her ears. No matter how good it felt to be in his arms again, she could not forget the pain and anger that had been eating her up for weeks because of him. She could not let him win her over like this so easily. She would never forgive herself if she did.

Pressing her palms flat on his chest, she gently pushed against him to force him to take a few steps back and let her look at him in the eyes.

“What are you sorry about, exactly?” she asked, her voice sturdier now that she felt confident enough to confront him. “Sorry that you pushed me away? Sorry that you hurt me? Or sorry that I am leaving because of you?”.

She could see the hurt flashing through his eyes at her words, although guilt was still masking his beautiful features painfully.

“I am sorry for all of it, Ellie.”. There was no hesitation in his voice. No lie and no false chivalry. She could tell that he was offering her the whole truth. “And I am sorry that I never left you a choice in this, that I assumed that I would know better what would be good for you… I was so wrong… so wrong…”.

He tried to reach for her, but she took a step back, wincing, and shaking her head slightly.

“What makes you think now that you were wrong? Has anything changed between now and the night you told me I needed to move out from your life? Am I any less mortal? Are you any less of a vampire? Is your life any less dangerous now?”.

Adrian looked like she had slapped him. Turning against him the arguments he had used to make her leave was the last thing she wanted to do, but she knew she had to. His words were engraved in her mind forever, and she was convinced that not even Scholar Jameson would be able to erase that from her memories. The words had burned so slowly and so bright through her skull throughout the past two months that they had become a truth that she had forced herself to accept.

“No, you’re right” Adrian conceded. “These things have not changed. There is still so much that I wish a life with me could not deprive you of, but… what changed is that I thought I could be strong for the both of us by letting you go, but… I was fooling myself… I cannot stand the idea of you moving away while I never really gave you a choice in this….”

“So…” she started tentatively, raising an eyebrow betraying her confusion. “This is about giving me back my right to choose? I could either go and start a new life somewhere else, or stay here and get back to you?”

Adrian nodded silently, letting the idea sink in her head.

Not having to make a choice had somehow made things easier for her before. She could not have done anything else but to move on. But now that he was here and offering her a way back to him, she was clueless about what to do. She felt raw, exposed, vulnerable. His piercing blue eyes seemed to be digging through her soul, trying to read her mind and to find the emotions she had been desperate to hide.

“What do you want Ellie?” he asked softly, raising a tentative hand towards hers to reach her cheek. “This is what I should have asked you from the start, and I am sorry I didn’t. So I am asking you now: what do you want to do, Ellie? What does your heart tell you to do?”

She closed her eyes, letting her cheek lean into his touch, forcing her breath to calm down to find the strength to finally pull out of her these words that she had wanted to say for so long. “Adrian, I think I’m in love with you, and that scares the crap out of me.”

She felt her body weaken at her admittance, feeling more vulnerable and exposed than ever before now that her heart was on display before him, bare and beating erratically in despair.

As if knowing this, Adrian instantly wrapped his other arm around her waist to pull her back against him, preventing her from seeing the reaction on his face, but allowing her to feel him tremble against her, and to hear his heartbeat mirror the irregular pattern of hers.

But she could not stand the silence. Nor could she stop the flow of thoughts and doubts that now seemed to want to pour out of her soul now that her love for him was all out in the open.

“Maybe you were right, Adrian.” She whimpered against his collarbone, repressing the urge to cry at the realisation that Adrian’s doubts and worries had now taken siege in her mind like weeds with ever-growing roots. “Maybe us was all too much, all too soon…. I don’t…. I think it would just consume me if I stayed and then you changed your mind and pushed me away again….”.

She felt Adrian jerk against her, his hold on her tightening dangerously as she heard him swallow painfully. “I won’t… I promise…”. His voice was rough, nearly strangled, betraying the emotions that were clearly overtaking him.

“How do you expect me to believe that?” she insisted, blocking her tears by burying her eyes into his shirt as deep as she could. “The situation is the same… nothing has changed… you think that now because you think irrationally but… we both know your doubts will never truly go away…”.

For a moment she thought he had stopped breathing, his hand in her neck tightening to the brink of pain, and his face sinking at the top of head as if he was trying to smother his breath in her hair. When he finally relaxed and released his hold to bring trembling hands around her head, there was nowhere left for him to hide his tears as he leaned to rest his forehead against hers.

“I will never push you away again… I promise… I don’t think I could even if I wanted to…” he breathed against her lips, his tears now falling freely from his lashes to her cheeks, a vivid testimony of the truth behind his words.

Bringing her hands to frame his face, she gently stroked her thumbs against his wet skin, before tentatively pushing forward to get closer to his lips, close enough to feel their shaking breaths mingle and their damp eyelashes brush each other’s skin.

“Please don’t cry”, she murmured with a feeble smile. “I can’t stand to see you cry”.

When their mouths finally met, it was the most gentle and careful caress that she had ever experienced. It was like discovering the softness of his skin for the very first time, and the way he moved against her felt like he was exploring every inch of her lips one at a time, as if trying to draw a map so that he could never forget his way back to them.

Their kisses were short, a little weak and breathless, the salt of their tears gradually invading their mouths as they could not refrain from caressing each other’s skin, smearing the wet trails of their tears with their fingertips.

This felt so familiar and yet so foreign, the intensity of what she felt threatening to make her crumble at his feet if he ever released his hold on her. Would she ever be able to reason and think straight when she was in his arms? In this moment, she did not care. All she wanted was to relish every breath, every shiver, and every tremor coursing through him, pressing her body as close to him as she could to let him feel how much her love for him was possessing her.

“Ellie...” he whispered against her lips between two kisses, his gaze betraying the exhaustion he felt from everything that just happened, but filled with a softness that seemed to wrap her like the softest fabric that could ever be made. “You have no idea how much I love you and how much I missed you...”.

If she had dared to doubt his words, his next kiss would have proved her otherwise, as she felt his entire being shake with relief and the tension instantly leave his bones, as if these unspoken words had been a burden that he would not have been able to carry any further. His warm lips had captured hers avidly, hungrily, gentle but yet urging and demanding, roaming and pressing against hers as he was relinquishing the last remaining bit of restraint that had been holding him back.

Ellie was gasping for breath but she did not care. She was blinded by the raw emotions that were washing over her in the darkness of the room. Mere minutes before, it had been like she was being slowly dragged underwater, weakened and bared by her admission that she loved him. Now, it felt like she had finally been yanked out of the terrifying depths by the strength of a few words, Adrian’s confession filling her lungs like the air she had been gasping for.

“I missed you so much”, he kept repeating between kisses, unable to stay still or silent anymore, and probably eager to make sure she believed his promises to never push her away again. “I missed you so much, please... come home with me”.

Staring into his eyes as she was finally able to steady herself and catch her breath, she could not repress the smile that was starting to form on her lips at the sight his beautiful dishevelled face, love, warmth and tenderness finally finding their place back in her chest after weeks of being forbidden to take a seat too close to her heart.

She was not entirely sure yet what she was going to do with her choice, but she surely could not ignore what she felt for Adrian anymore. Tonight, they had laid the shattered pieces of their hearts at their feet, and picked up the largest pieces, hand in hand, willing to start putting them back together one at a time. Whether they could mend their hearts together, side by side, or whether they would have to do this alone, was something that only time would tell. But for now....

“I am home”, she simply answered his request, her voice soft and calmer now, her eyes darting across his face to take in all of the tiny perfections and imperfections she had missed so much. “Stay with me, please, Adrian... Stay with me tonight”.

~~~~~

N/A: Thank you again Anon for the prompt, and thank you for anyone who read it all the way! This segment is far from over, so more should come soon, hopefully!

If you liked it, any comments and/or reblogs would be deeply appreciated! J

~~~~~

Tagging @adriansbiss , @itsjustwinter , @shanzay44 , @purvishraick, @thefrenchiemama

@choicesficwriterscreations

[the-lady-writes-what]

“Horikoshi is pathetic and an abuse apologist”

“Endeavor doesn’t deserve a redemption arc”

“Horikoshi’s just a bad writer”

“They shouldn’t fight Dabi’s who’s mentally ill”

That’s what I’ve hearing a lot lately. As someone who’s trying to become an author, I get defensive about creators getting slandered. If you find yourself in one of these camps, keep your opinions to yourself because I don’t want to hear it. You’re free to believe what you want, but just know that I think you need to either find a new manga to read or look a little closer because I don’t think we’re reading the same thing. I'm not asking you to unfollow and block me. Do with my opinion what you want to. I’m not going to address all these issues, but I will for most of them.

“Horikoshi is pathetic and an abuse apologist”

You say that with the same energy as Gen Z kids trying to cancel Eminem. You act like he abused someone in real life. If you don’t like his portrayal of the cycle of abuse, then find something else to read. And don’t pretend like you don’t read dark content for fun but don’t condone the things that go in there. Even if he was an abuse apologist, which he isn’t, his behavior in real life would reflect that. Unless you have a connection to Japanese newspapers declaring that he’s actually an awful person, think before you type. 

What part of the manga makes you believe that Horikoshi is an abuse apologist? Is it because Endeavor’s not dead? That his family is pushing him to end the cycle of abuse he started and accept the responsibility of catching Dabi, the result of his actions? Hawks wasn’t getting an apology for Endeavor, he was getting an apology from Rei for what Dabi did to him. Hawks is likely never going to get closure for his own parental letdowns but at least he can see Shoto getting it. He even went so far as to ask if Shoto got the scar from Endeavor with a look on his face that would kill. I don’t think he would have let Endeavor get away with hurting Shoto if his expression was anything to go by. He’s accepted that he won’t get closure, but he probably thinks Shoto can.

Here’s a list of things from the manga that show Endeavor facing the consequences of his actions (abuse, neglect, and arrogance) that display the opposite of abuse apology

Throughly having his ass handed to him by that Nomu

Natsuo refusing to forgive him

Berated by his wife about how he’s suddenly assuming guilt for his actions

Distrust from the public about heroes in general

Dealing with the fact that his eldest son is a serial murderer and domestic terrorist because of the abuse he endured under Endeavor

Shoto hasn’t decided yet to forgive his father

Another near-death experience 

Being unable to fight back when Shoto is attacked by Dabi and feeling guilty about it

Having his family push him to accept the fact that he has to stop Dabi, the result of his actions

Depression and the weight of guilt of so many years ignoring his affect on his family

Where 👏 Is 👏 My👏Reading👏Comprehension👏 People? 

Ya’ll act and talk like you’re reading something entirely different and I won’t stand for smearing Horikoshi like this.

“Endeavor doesn’t deserve a redemption arc”

That’s your opinion. Some people would say otherwise. I’m not one of those, but I don’t share your opinion either. I’m in the camp that says this is a repentance arc, which is completely different. It’s not about Endeavor redeeming himself, it’s about him accepting the consequences of his actions and taking steps to make up for it. Whether or not the Todoroki family accepts his apology, that is up to them and their decisions are valid no matter what they choose. 

The only reason why I’m not an Endeavor basher is because unlike most abusers he acknowledges his past sins and is taking steps to make up for them. I wish my own father would so much as acknowledge the damage he did to me and my sister, let alone apologize for it. At least Endeavor is trying to change. How many abusers do you know of in the real world who will ever admit to having done wrong and try to make up for their actions? Not many I bet. 

“They shouldn’t fight Dabi. He’s mentally ill.”

So murdering 30+ people is mental self-care? Is that what we’re stooping to? Regardless of Dabi’s mental health, the decisions he made while on his own and away from his family were his own choices. Let’s not forget that Dabi blames his whole family for his neglect and abuse for either not doing anything to stop it or being too weak in his eyes. Dabi would burn his family alive and make Endeavor watch just for shits and giggles. Dabi is not some soft boy who needs some human affection and meds to make him feel better. Every decision he’s made on his own may be in spite to Endeavor, but they’re his decisions. 

He killed 30 people plus gods know how many when he aided in a domestic terrorist attack that devastated cities. Dabi didn’t seem all that concerned for Twice (he was using the latter for his own goals and used Twice’s death as a means to end to ruin Hawks), Mr. Compress (when he had half his guts hanging out and Dabi didn’t lift a finger), Himiko Toga (whom he hasn’t even asked about), or even Shigaraki (whom he’s despised since the beginning and is also using for his own goals). Dabi does not care about anyone. Fanon Dabi is fun and probably more mentally stable, but canon Dabi wouldn’t hesitate to kill someone if they inconvenienced him in anyway. Sorry not sorry. 

Do you know how many murderers and serial killers are out there have mental illness? Edward Gein, Edmund Kemper, Ted Bundy, Randy Kraft? Just because you have a mental illness, you don’t get to use that as an excuse. We don’t excuse Youtubers falling back on depression when they’re caught sexting teenagers and grooming children. Kill one person, maybe we can work something out. Kill 30 people and we need to put your ass in jail. I don’t care if Dabi is affected by mental illness, so has the rest of the Todoroki family and none of them decided to become serial murderers and terrorists. He’s helped throw the Japan of MHA into brutal chaos where civilians are getting hurt and killed and setting free 10,000 prisoners now causing havoc in the streets. Mental illness is no longer an excuse or even a good reason.

I’m just thankful that Dabi’s a fictional character because I don’t want to meet someone who uses mental illness as an excuse or reason why someone else killed 30+ people. We already have a big enough problem associating mental illness with serial killers and causing harm to the public, I don’t even want a fictional character being coddled because of his supposed mental illness after he gleefully admits to killing 30 people, participating a terrorist attack, and tried to kill his youngest brother, twice. 

[filmmakerdreamst]

How Xena: Warrior Princess Allowed Me To Accept Myself

I was living in a city all alone and these two characters showed me that it was ok for two women to love each other.

In order to understand the following story, there’s something you need to know about me. I have always loved fiction. From the age of about 5 to 11, I loved books more than I loved people. I was a shy child who found it easier to emotionally engage with fictional worlds than the real one around me.

See, fictional worlds are created for your brain’s enjoyment. Their rules make sense. Events happen for a reason. The narrator tells you why characters behave the way they do, allowing you to empathize with them on a deep emotional level. Easy to understand, easy to identify with, easy to love.

But real people are complicated. The real world is complicated. And things are seldom laid out nicely in a coherent narrative format for you. Real things are much harder to love.

This emotional disengagement continued from the age of 11 onwards, although it was no longer as pronounced. My habit of retreating into fiction would fade during good times and come back in force during difficult or stressful periods. During the stressful periods of college, the rise of Netflix allowed me to become certifiably obsessed with my favorite TV shows. And naturally, I joined Tumblr in order to more easily fangirl with people who shared my interests.

Only for some peculiar reason that I didn’t care to examine, my interests were slowly gravitating towards girl-girl couples. Soon I was shipping, reblogging, and reading fanfiction almost exclusively about female couples. But I, who had always considered myself straight despite lacking interest in the boys around me, didn’t think this meant that I was gay. I probably just found female couples more emotionally satisfying. I was friends with mostly women, I was a woman myself, so it was natural that I just understood them better. Yeah, that was probably it.

Fast-forward to nine months ago. I was living in Boston and incredibly depressed about it. My job and my boss were making my life miserable and I had very few people to socialize with. I was making the rough transition from the constant socialization of college to the isolating pressure of a city where I had few connections. My days and nights were some of the loneliest I had ever experienced. I looked for something, anything, to lift the heart-crushing emotional silence.

My solution was the same one I always chose when I was dissatisfied with the real world; obsession with a new TV show. And thanks to my femslash-focused tumblr community, I knew just what my next feel-good show was going to be.

My tumblr friends had told me this: Xena: Warrior Princess is an action-fantasy show that enjoys a cult status, much like Buffy: The Vampire Slayer (which I watched and loved). The two shows were made in the same mid-to-late 90's era, with similar bad special effects and endearing campiness. But XWP is much… MUCH… more gay.

That was about all I knew about the show going in. And amazingly, that was all I needed to know to be excited about watching it. You’d think that fact would have told me something about myself, but no. The mental walls of denial were years in the building and needed more force than that to be shattered.

For anyone unfamiliar with the show’s premise, Xena: Warrior Princess is about the title character and her quest for redemption. You see, Xena did some bad things in her previous life on another show (Hercules: The Legendary Journeys). In her storied career as a warlord, she committed such petty crimes as genocide, the slaughter of innocents, that kind of thing. But now she has seen the light and wants to atone for her crimes. Except she can never undo the terrible things she did. All Xena can do now is help people on a day-to-day basis and hope that it’s enough for someone to show her mercy.

Which is already fantastic from a character standpoint. But there is a secret mirror to Xena’s journey that is not reflected in the show’s title, and that is Gabrielle and her character arc.

Oh! Gabrielle! When I met her in the very first episode, I loved her straightaway. She is a feisty, naive, talkative small-town girl who accompanies Xena on all her adventures. Her character quickly assumes paramount importance in the narrative. Gabrielle is Xena’s only friend. She comes to know her better than anyone else and love her for who she is, all the while believing Xena can reach redemption. Yet Gabrielle is not just a support system for Xena; she goes on her own heroic journey. The two character arcs intertwine and co-develop in a way I have never seen in any show before or since.

As each episode rolled by and their relationship grew in complexity, I found myself more and more engrossed. And I came to realize: this was something I wanted. The day I accepted my own desire was the day I accepted myself. What could be more strangling than denying the existence of your own feelings? Yet I had been doing this to myself for years — cutting off the possibility of being attracted to other women — without even realizing.

Before beginning the show, I thought the fandom had read in between the lines to construct a romantic relationship between the two characters, the same way as femslash shippers do in all other TV shows. Except not this time. This one is mind-blowingly different.

Not only does the narrative place utmost importance on the relationship between Xena and Gabrielle, but the actresses bring such multi-dimensional love to their parts. When I saw Lucy Lawless (Xena) and Renee O’Connor (Gabrielle) interact, I could so easily believe that these two women loved each other beyond friendship. Xena and Gabrielle display every kind of love you can think of. They protect and sacrifice for each other. They tease and flirt. They cuddle and console. They have inside jokes with each other. They dance sexily. They play pranks and drive each other crazy. They sweetly kiss. They come back from the dead together. They bathe together. They raise each other’s children. They meet in alternate timelines and fall in love all over again.

I could have left my mental walls of denial in place. I could have said to myself “oh yes, I want this. But with a guy.” But no. Lawless and O’Connor’s incredibly attractive faces and bodies broke down the door of my mental closet. Precisely because they were fictional, I felt safe to admit my attraction to them. One of the key mental blocks I had always had towards accepting any attraction towards other women was the thought that I was being creepy. That since they could not possibly feel the same way about me, it was wrong to feel the way I did. But in my mind, that barrier didn’t exist with fictional characters. They couldn’t feel anything for me. Therefore, it was fine to feel whatever I want about them.

The walls cracked. The water came rushing in. Oh my god. I am attracted to other women. Like, every day of my life. Those flickers in my stomach when I talk to an attractive female coworker suddenly make a whole lot of sense now. I now saw my historical awkwardness when talking to beautiful girls, which I always dismissed as “me being weird”, for what it was. All those short-term girl crushes on older girls throughout high school. How was I so sure they were platonic? That heart-aching infatuation I had with my best friend that lasted for years? Yeah, add that to the ‘definitely gay’ list.

Since then I’ve realized that my feelings are valid regardless of what others feel for me. Just because feelings are unrequited doesn’t mean they aren’t real. That’s what Xena and Gabrielle taught me. Their fictional example was the final blow to my rapidly-crumbling resistance to the idea of homosexuality.

In our culture today, so many forms of media reinforce heteronormativity. How many commercials have you seen that assume attraction between a man and a woman? How many billboards tell women that they need to look sexy for the men in their lives? How many times has a movie ended with the guy getting the girl? It’s the combined action of a thousand small rocks shifting to make a cultural avalanche. You can’t move against it. All you can do is stand still and try to maintain your footing against the current, to maintain your identity in the face of a world where you and people like you are often swept away by the mainstream.

Xena: Warrior Princess is one of those rare stories that dares to go against the grain. It celebrates a romantic relationship between two women as the most natural thing in the world. And in doing so, it provides a mirror for me and people like me to recognize themselves in. There we are. Look at us fly.

This story isn’t over yet. I still have a lot of work to do to accept myself, but thanks to Xena and Gabrielle I’ve taken one huge step towards living the open life I want to live. I moved on from that horrible job and lonely city, but in the end I’m grateful. Grateful that circumstances pushed me to the depths of loneliness necessary to bring down the prison I had built in my own mind.

- How Xena: Warrior Princess Allowed Me To Accept Myself by Lyra Hall

[thevoidable]

Why Spinaraki is an underrated gem of a ship

Okay, so first of all I just have to make a quick disclaimer: this is not to discredit other Shigaraki and Spinner ships, this is just to highlight why I think these two in particular are just neat. 

Also, manga spoiler warning, as per usual. Content below the cut.

Why their characters work

Spinaraki’s dynamic is something that I feel like is overlooked by a lot of bnha fans, even from a platonic sense, so I’d like to briefly go over their individual characters to reiterate why they’re such a good match for each other.

Starting off, Shigaraki is an absolutely brilliantly-written villain, with a deep and complex past and personality that make him more than your average end-game bad guy. His broken mind that has been beaten to hell and back by severe trauma is still able to recognise flaws within society and the people that live in it, and has come such a long way since his first debut in the series. But what makes him stand out from most other villains is just how human and empathetic he is deep down.

Despite all of AFO’s grooming into making him a hate-filled, destruction-craving god, Shigaraki still retains a key quality from his childhood: a desire to befriend the friendless.

The reason why the League is such a good portrayal of a found family is because of this innate want to sympathize and look after the outcasts in his life. It didn’t take much time at all for him to come to respect the other members of the League by the time the Overhaul arc came around, and during the MVA arc, it’s clear he cares deeply about their wants and needs. He’s patient and listens to them, valuing their opinions greatly.

And now it’s time to turn our attention to the underrated character of this underrated ship: Spinner.

Spinner was understandably one of the more forgettable villains during the training camp arc - all he had to his character was that he was a hardcore Stain fanboy and nothing more.

However, that all changed when the MVA arc dropped, and we saw a side to Spinner that ties in to one of the BNHA universe’s underlying problems in their superhuman society, and made him so much more three-dimensional, lovable, and relatable. A victim of heteromorphic discrimination, Spinner was outcasted in his hometown and forced into reclusion, where he wasted his life away in his room lest he step outside and risk being called a freak again. It wasn’t until he saw Stain plaguing the news that he was finally inspired to act, seeking out the League who claimed to uphold Stain’s ideology.

At his core, Spinner was simply searching for something to jump on, something that would make him get up and make significant change in his life, and looking at his backstory, it’s no wonder why Stain’s ideals struck a chord with him. He has plenty of reason to despise society like the rest of the League, but his experience with being discriminated against also makes him a sympathetic and sensitive character. He recognises that he’s extremely out of place in the world, even amongst the League, because he was the last one of them to figure out what he really wanted in the end, and it’s clear he has plenty of insecurities when it comes to questioning his purpose in life, comparing himself to others - like Toga, another fan of Stain - and how they seem to fit in so easily.

It’s because of these insecurities that Shigaraki and Spinner work well together, because Shigaraki’s patience, understanding, and confidence is what allowed Spinner to solidify his conviction and come to terms with the fact that not 100% fitting in and just coming along for the ride is perfectly okay.

How their chemistry develops

Spinner and Shigaraki’s first proper on-screen interaction was during the highway scene after the Overhaul arc. This is also the first time we see Spinner question whether the League really is about Stain’s ideology or not, and Shigaraki responds by reassuring him that they’re making a necessary sacrifice. 

Since this is the point in the series where Shigaraki begins to really place his trust and respect in the League, it really shows with how he trusts Spinner’s driving enough to sit on top of the damn truck. And speaking of Spinner’s driving, this is the first time we get a glimpse into his character beyond the fanboy, scenes that we were unfortunately robbed of in the anime.

Spinner’s love for video games immediately gives him something in common with Shigaraki, and the both of them frequently use video game lingo to describe their battle strategies and thought processes.

(Spinner’s face in the corner absolutely sends me.)

From then on, their interactions go into a radio silence until the MVA arc kicks in, and this is where their relationship really begins to take off.

After we get some exposition on heteromorphic discrimination from Spinner, we return to the League in their temporary hideout where we discover that they’re not doing too hot. They’re at a stalemate, unable to really do anything too productive, which prompts Spinner to speak up. He’s frustrated with not knowing what direction they’re going in, and understandably so, because right now, the League is his only place to go. If he left, he would be entirely on his own again, and this time with the heroes breathing down his neck.

He goes into brief detail about the kind of harsh environment he came from and why he was inspired by Stain, and in the heat of the moment, he doesn’t think twice about grabbing the front of Shigaraki’s shirt, the man who could disintegrate him with one touch. Spinner’s got mad balls, I’ll give him that.

Now, it’s known that Shigaraki isn’t too fond of Stain, but he still doesn’t get angry at all, even when Spinner is right up in his face. He remains calm, patient, and is ready to explain what he wants to happen (until he gets interrupted by Machia, of course).

Fast-forward to when they’ve all been warped inside the doctor’s lab and Shigaraki now has to present his conviction to Ujiko - Spinner’s expression is a little difficult to read here, but it seems his expectations for what Shigaraki has to say are low.

However, when Shigaraki speaks, his words deeply resonate with Spinner, and it becomes clear that Shigaraki had listened very closely to Spinner’s frustrated rant back in the hideout.

That last panel is especially interesting and drawn in a very deliberate way. Notice how, as Shigaraki is explaining his feelings, everyone except for Spinner is either confused or uninterested, and the panel is framed so that Spinner is the only one looking directly at Shigaraki. It very subtly conveys how Spinner is the sole person in the room who understands how Shigaraki feels, because despite coming from completely different backgrounds and experiencing completely different levels of trauma, Spinner and Shigaraki still hold the exact same sentiments when it comes to their innermost thoughts and desires.

So, needless to say, Spinner is now somewhat invested, and ready to pay close attention to Shigaraki’s future actions.

The next time we see them, it’s a month and a half later, and here we see Spinner relaying his concerns about Stain once again to Toga.

It seems that he’s talking more to himself than to Toga, and it reveals his insecurities about his place in the League. He’s debating on whether or not he should stay or leave, and which is the better option. He appears to be willing to wait a little longer to see things through however; he wants to see where Shigaraki’s pursuit of his dream takes him.

(That’s pretty home of sexual of you, Spinner.)

Cut to when the League are battling with the MLA - Toga gets caught up with Curious, Twice runs off to go look for her, and Compress and Dabi are separated from the group via Geten, leaving Spinner and Shigaraki to fight together. Spinner is the first to witness Shigaraki’s Quirk suddenly evolve to where the decay will spread to whatever is touching it, and he’s quite amazed by it.

They begin to get a little overwhelmed with how many soldiers they’re up against, and since Shigaraki is in a very hazy, sleep-deprived state, Spinner voices his concern for him. Shigaraki brushes his own health off to the side to bring up his uncertainty in his decision to fight the MLA, and he asks for Spinner’s opinion on the matter, showing that once again, Shigaraki listens to and values what his allies have to say. This time it’s Spinner’s turn to reassure Shigaraki that he made the right choice, allowing him to refocus on getting to the tower.

Shortly after, the Twices show up to help escort Shigaraki to the tower, and Spinner takes this opportunity to help lighten the burden by taking out the politician, who is basically giving the MLA soldiers stat boosts.

In the midst of his fight, he reflects on where he came from and how he got here, and he finally solidifies why he wants to follow Shigaraki. After realising that they share the same sentiments, he too wants to see the horizon that Shigaraki is envisioning. Shigaraki “lit a fire in his heart”, and as all he can think about is helping him in whatever way he can, he comes to accept that it’s fine if he’s just coming along for the ride.

(”I’ve got nothing I love” Are you sure about that-)

As we come to the grand finale of the battle, Shigaraki obliterates a huge chunk of the city, levelling it completely, and Spinner is the only other member from the League to witness it.

He’s completely awestruck, and when it comes to Spinaraki, it doesn’t get any gayer than these two lines parallelling one another: 

Some post-development crumbs

Now that we have their relationship established and developed, we can poke at the smaller stuff that takes place afterwards.

The first little crumb we get is when Shigaraki is introduced on stage in the room beneath the MLA mansion. The other League members are waiting for their cue to walk out, and Spinner’s heart beats as he watches Shigaraki intently.

After the speech, Shigaraki collapses from exhaustion, and while Compress simply remarks on how it’s a miracle he was still standing, Spinner expresses legitimate surprise and concern.

And for one last crumb until we see them interact again, I just think it’s cute that Spinner is in the support regiment of the PLF, yet again continuing the notion of Spinner wanting to help Shigaraki however he can.

In conclusion…

Spinaraki is a surprisingly soft and wholesome villain ship with a lot of fluff potential. Just two local gaymers who want to get back at society for condemning them, and who have each other’s complete support and loyalty.

Shigaraki has a huge soft-spot for his fellow outcasts, and Spinner is no exception. He accepts Spinner for who he is, doesn’t make any condescending remarks about him or his appearance, and remains patient and calm even when Spinner gets frustrated, making sure to listen and take in every word that’s said. He values Spinner as a person, and that ends up meaning so much for Spinner in the long run.

Spinner was someone who had no desires of his own, and nowhere to go where he felt safe and accepted. Even after taking up Stain’s ideals and joining the League, he was uncertain if he still belonged there - he’s noticed how there is no longer a trace of Stain’s ideology within the League, and he’s still faced discrimination in the form of Dabi calling him a lizard during the highway scene, something which the CRC does at the beginning of the MVA arc. However, Shigaraki ended up becoming Spinner’s reason for staying, finally giving him purpose to his life. They feel the same when it comes to acting out against society, and they’re able to understand one another on that emotional level. They have plenty in common, and it’s very clear now that Spinner is fully-prepared to follow Shigaraki to the ends of the earth.

Spinaraki’s dynamic is severely underrated, and the concept of Spinner - who has no prior romantic experience - crushing on the world’s new destructive god is too good to pass up. And the video game dates? 10/10, so damn adorable, they could bond over so many different games and just chill out when they don’t feel like going outside. Not to mention it’s just so good how Shigaraki isn’t fazed by Spinner’s appearance and how Spinner desperately needs that from someone, because this boy has obviously not been loved at all and craves that kind of connection (I mean, just look at how easily flustered he got from Mandalay’s flirting; no wonder he was pissed about it afterwards, now that we know what kind of history he’s had. That was probably the first time anyone’s ever complimented his appearance, and it just ended up being a dirty trick).

So yeah, Spinaraki has my whole heart, and I can’t wait to see them interact more (pls lord Horikoshi, give us Spinner reacting to buffraki when they reunite, I need to see his gay little heart panic for a whole second). Their dynamic is one of the cutest within the League, and I really hope more people see it when the MVA arc gets animated.

I hope you all enjoyed reading this - have a cute little sketch my good friend @batsyart​ did as a bonus!

[timextoxhajima]

Playlist Feels: SHORT SERIES PART 1

Member: stripper LEE JUYEON

Genre: angst, smut, exes to lovers because why the fuck not lmao and it fits the song anyw

A/N: at the point of writing this I WAS TIRED AND SLIGHTLY DRUNK BUT LETS GO. also, NOT part of the GEN Z series, i have racer juyeon in stall for you in gen z ;) also i told V that i was never going to write a stripper au for jy until he goes shirtless or grinds on a prop like kim kai did in artificial love... but when i saw this video, i thought of nothing BUT kim jongin. their styles are pretty similar... not to mention kai had an undercut phase too... conclusion: dana is in a mess and she’s drunk

“i know it hurts to smile but you try to.”

what is a story?

a story has a start, an arc, an ending. 

is it pages of cream colored sheets stacked atop one another, word after word after word printed in ink?

is it the lyrics that your neighbour sings in the shower because he associates the beauty of the lyrics with some heartbreak he’s been through, regardless of when he experienced it?

is it the way someone walks in the room and steals everybody’s attention with the sheer amount of confidence and intimidation he was radiating?

so, what is a story?

ups-and-downs. friendship. love. heartbreak. faults.

‘it was my fault, and it always will be.’

god wouldn’t have allowed you to forget that face even if you were dead, even if you had your skull cracked open and your brain was being eaten out in bits like Hannibal Lecter savouring the flesh of his victim. 

it feels like a witch’s long, untamed nails were being dragged across your skin, and she was breathing down your ear, whispering secrets of potions and words to curses like they were part of a song. 

he who is inked in your heart made of stone will never be removed.

blood that runs thick in the color of love forbids a stake foretold.

bones crumble to dust like fine sand in the wind,

for you will never forget that you have sinned.

the scars on your heart slowly tears apart like a wound that never healed, and every step he makes on the space makes you wish that he was stepping on your soul instead. 

not because you were sexually frustrated, but because you deserved it.

“y/n, lighten up! we’re here to have fun, not watch your mopey ass sulk!”

“yeah, you’ve been so stressed lately, don’t you think it’s time to loosen up?”

“for the record,” the music starts to thump in your stomach and the lights dim into a dark shade of red. “i didn’t want to come to a strip club.”

blood has covered the light, for his soul cries over your misdoings. 

“ugh, you’re such a party pooper,” she huffs, visibly frustrated when her forehead creases into lines under her makeup. 

the memory of you aggressively avoiding being dragged to a strip club rings in your ears like a fire alarm. sometimes, you would’ve loved nothing more besides throw a chair when she acts like that; making it seem like you wanted to do something when you’ve clearly stated you didn’t.

unfortunately, you were used to her shitty little habit. 

coercion sprints itself across your arm when she suddenly grabs it, violently shaking you when the music starts. 

dread washes over you like wildfire when he starts to move, and he suddenly becomes one with the music. 

the whiteness of his skin grabs you by the neck and sticks an ice-cold popsicle down your throat. you could still taste the sourness of the lemon flavoured one he would always give you, even though he liked it too.

the shiny, glittery, loose clothes hanging around his physical existence freezes your muscles the way medusa could turn people into stone. the hairs on your arms stand when you remember how small you looked in his clothes.

and his eyes. they hold a dagger at your heart, tip already sinking into the skin on your chest. 

black, sticky, dense tears flood out every hole of your soul’s mouth.

it takes a massive amount of effort to keep every dollop of excruciatingly painful memories to yourself, for you would’ve thrown up your dinner if you didn’t invest that kind of effort.

in your head, you were a demon coated in tears and smudged ink. 

stuck in time like a statue, your eyes were hollow and your voice was no longer. 

red, the color of blood mixed with poison was spewing out every hole from your face, your knees hitting the ground where the a bed of thorns were laid out carelessly.

the same way you laid out the bed of roses for him, only to become his thorns.

the start of the story began when you first locked eyes with him first in the neighbourhood library near your school. 

you never really liked studying in school, not when there were always noisy kids tossing a ball around or someone loudly crunching on chips next to you.

it doesn’t take long for you to notice that he’s been watching you, resulting in you warily turning around to look behind you to see if he was looking at someone else.

a soft chime in the hall pulls your attention to the old clock hanging above the entrance of the library, and an announcement rings through the PA system.

“dear visitors, the time now is 11pm. kindly exit the library and dispose of any litter you may have with you. we hope you’ve enjoyed your time here and we hope to see you soon.”

it was exactly because it was so late, that there was nobody left in the library.

carefully, you return your attention back to him, music still playing softly in your earpieces.

his eyes were glued to his books as he clears them off the table, and you remain seated, taking your time to pack your things as well.

you were hoping he doesn’t come over, so naturally, you panic when he does.

feigning the mindless scrolling on your phone doesn’t do much when he presses his palm flat on to the surface of the table, robbing you of an option to ignore him.

well, you could, but you recognise him. 

how could anybody not recognise him?

his eyes meet yours and intimidation fills you like you were drowning, but he suddenly squats with the support of his hand gripping onto the edge of the table, eyes darting away.

a frown finds itself on your face and you watch cautiously when he stands up again, placing a pen and a candy wrapper on the table before you.

“planning on hiding in the bathroom and staying overnight?”

“i... uh-- no...”

“okay,” releasing the edge of the table, he grips the two straps over his shoulders by the sides of his chest and nods towards the exit. “time to go then.”

lee juyeon had always been a rather mysterious character in school. he was two years your senior but it wasn’t surprising to know that he was friends with three of your classmates, one of them being your closest friends. 

when he wasn’t smiling, he looked like he could kill someone; drive a knife through their faces and not feel a pinch of guilt.

but when he does, it’s like setting off a billion firecrackers at once.

and by firecrackers, you mean the girls in school swooning over him.

if you had to choose a word to describe the way you looked at him, it had to be ‘indifferent’. you couldn’t deny that he was a great painting to look at and pretend ‘ugliness’ wasn’t a thing, but you’ve never really bothered to invest your emotions on anybody you deemed too far to reach.

so when he offers to walk you back to your place because of how late it was, it surprises you. 

“why do you study in the community library and not the school library? i thought i’d see you with sunwoo or eric or hyunjun in school.”

“uh... i stay for awhile just to watch them mess around until they lose their stamina... the school library is filled with idiots who eat and make a fool of themselves which make it not-conducive... so i thought the community library is a better idea. besides, the school library closes at 7pm.”

“ah,” he laughs, and you could hear the swooning in the back of your head. “why am i not surprised?”

silence. 

the awkward atmosphere was killing you, and it was difficult to swallow the fact that you could not think of anything to say.

luckily, you stay just about a ten minute walk from the library, so juyeon walks right past your residence without noticing you’ve stopped.

“uh-- juyeon...”

“huh? oh,” he halts in his tracks and turns around, sheepishly taking large steps back to you. 

“thank you for walking me back.”

“it’s alright.”

silence, again.

“...goodnight.”

“goodnight, y/n.”

you purse your lips and offer him a polite smile, slightly surprised that he knows your name. 

then again, he knows three of your classmates, and you were good friends with hyunjun. 

he doesn’t leave until the lift takes you away from the lobby, the view of him waving to you with his unwaxed, tousled hair makes you smile to yourself once out of sight.

the arc of the story comes when you start to find candy under your desk a few weeks later. 

you had stopped visiting the library because you were cooped up at home working on projects you needing your laptop for. 

the sugar left on your desk seemed to be some kind of coaxing to get you to go back to the library.

the candy on the desk was the same one that you ate at the library, the one with the wrapper that juyeon picked up--

“hyunjun,” you call out to the boy who was passed out on the table, walking towards him. 

“go away, i want to sleep--”

“you’ll sleep in class anyway,” grabbing his shoulders, it takes you some effort to peel him off the desk and make him sit upright. “you know who left this and i want to know who.”

hyunjun looks at you with bloodshot eyes, brows furrowing as he messes up his own hair.

“you sound like you already know who, so why do i need to bother telling you?”

the plastic of the candy wrapper crinkles in your hold as hyunjun’s head meets the table again.

again, it doesn’t take long for you to find out that juyeon might have a crush on you, and neither does it take long for you to reciprocate. 

being with juyeon was like sitting on a car and going on a long road trip. 

not many bumps, not many surprises, frankly, you were more than happy he was such an easy man to be with. 

when juyeon graduates, he gets admitted into a performing arts academy in another city, leaving you in school where you still had to wear school uniform and wake up even before the sun rose.

but he makes an effort to come back to visit you, knowing that he was the older one with more freedom. 

this long road trip, however, turns into a rollercoaster without warning, without your realisation.

the institute you enroll yourself into after graduation was located further away from the academy than your old school, but juyeon promises that he’d be with you whenever you could, and you promised the same.

distance becomes the first problem, when you realise how taxing it is to spend two hours travelling across the country to see him, and spend more time sitting on a bus or a train than actually being with him.

it starts to wear you away at the edges, fire burning the corners of ivory sheets with mandarin colored flames and leaving ashes the shade of coal on the floor.

then when juyeon was in his final year and you were halfway through your four year course, it was almost like he vanishes off the face of earth.

it worried you at first, that it felt like he was treating this four year relationship like he mattress he could fall back on anytime he wanted to. 

you didn’t blame him, but it stings in the wounds that draw on your heart after a considerable amount of time. 

was this what a long-distance-relationship encapsulated? how do couples who don’t even stay in the same country get through it?

you miss his scent, his arms around you, the way he smiles at you whenever you say something stupid or when he doesn’t get a joke and you had to explain it to him. 

it feels like he has forgotten you, and it rips you apart that you knew why, that you understand he has his own responsibilities as a student in a prestigious performing arts academy. 

but you can’t help but to think: if i could find time that i wanted to provide him, then why couldn’t he?

there was an expectation, and he didn’t meet it. naturally, it becomes a parasite in your love for juyeon. not only had you not seen him in months, his replies begin to spread out across days. 

he doesn’t reply until more than 24 hours later, and even when he does, they are short. they are dry.

you start to wonder why he was being so irresponsible with a relationship, especially one that he initiated four years ago. your thoughts start to run wild in your head, and you worry if he had just been playing with you the entire time, and now he was probably kissing someone else in some dance studio in another city.

no, juyeon would never.

then the day came that he appears on social media after a long time. the light that filled you was so intense that you smiled just by noticing he’s finally not dead.

yet, you would’ve much preferred death over seeing another girl on his social media. 

he didn’t have the time to respond to you, but he has the time to go out with another girl?

you leave him a text, trying to keep your cool and convince yourself that she was just a friend, and that he’d reply you as soon as possible if he knew you were feeling upset about him spending time with another girl.

hurt converts itself into something physical when he doesn’t reply. 

one day passes, then two. 

and soon, the whole week flies past. 

calls don’t get through, much less messages.

just what was he doing?

you worry and wonder that he no longer loved you and he was merely running from you in hopes you’d leave him alone.

where had you gone wrong? were you a bad partner?

your grades started to take a toll, and memories of juyeon started to clog up in your head as if you weren’t already trying to tear your heart out of your chest.

juyeon no longer loves you. 

he’s just having the time of his life in another city, with another girl, probably kissing her in the dance studio and running his hands all over her.

the mere thought kills you, so being able to actually imagine it in your head peels your skin off your body, leaving you in a wrecked mess on the floor with tissues used to wipe your tears. 

then, sangyeon came along.

the fresh graduate was flustered when he sees a second-year student fallen apart in a tutorial room on his trips back to the university. but he recognises you from a branching out event you attended a month ago.

it lasted two weeks, and sangyeon was your teammate as a senior, so he was more than aware of your life and existence. 

sang yeon stays a safe distance away from you while you try with way too much effort to calm your sobs down. 

it’s not a surprise when it fails though, and you break down even harder with the force of someone beating you up

sangyeon doesn’t hesitate to scoot over to your side and pull you into his arms.

it was tricky, trying to recall what exactly you told him. your eyes were swollen and your face must’ve looked like a plum while your tears stained his shirt. 

having someone’s shoulder to cry on was so comforting. it fills a gaping hole in your chest that shouldn’t be there in the first place. 

sangyeon’s voice runs through your head like honey, honey that soothes the scalding burns juyeon left on your skin. 

you knew it was dangerous, and there was a thin line to cross if you chose to let sangyeon through the doors of your heart. 

most your friends weren’t truly aware of the status of the relationship, thus telling sangyeon everything at one go combusts you even further. 

the urge to have someone’s skin pressed against yours, promising you that you were safe whenever they were around becomes painful to reject. 

you will never forget the look in sangyeon’s eyes when you kiss him mid-sentence. 

sangyeon tastes exactly his voice sounded, sweet and soft. his eyes were wide open the second you ram your lips into his. 

his reluctance slips across your arm, feeling a small amount of force being applies to your elbow when he realises what was happening.

but that pressure softens, and he lets you treat him like juyeon, in attempt to cure your own broken heart.

you will make the biggest mistake you will ever make in your life that night, and that was letting yourself pretend sangyeon was juyeon.

not only were you the one who initiated the kiss in attempt to redeem the lack of affection you were none but craving, you chose to pretend juyeon was the one who spent the night leaving fluttering kisses all over your skin. to whisper words of comfort into your ears and kiss your tears away.

when you wake up and see a pair of eyes that shouldn’t be in such close proximity to yours, it feels like a sword has been driven through your stomach.

then you hear hell knocking on your door, but he sounds like love and missing.

it is a crack, then a rip and a complete separation of your body into two when juyeon realises the door of your dorm room is not locked, and he has that bright smile on his face when he walks into the room, thinking you were asleep.

everything happens under a minute, and sangyeon wasn’t even fully awake by the time juyeon was in the room, seeing you in bed with another man.

the memory of a fight the magnitude of tremendous proportions etches itself in your brain like a parasite. 

juyeon literally hurls sangyeon out the door, the only piece of clothing on him being his underwear. 

there was an effort to stop juyeon, because you knew it for yourself that it was not sangyeon’s fault.

it was yours, and it always will be.

juyeon has the man’s clothes thrown out the door and he slams it shut in his face before you could say anything to sangyeon, locking both himself and you in the room.

have you ever seen the eyes of someone who has absolutely no clue what he did wrong?

they are broken, confused, hurt, angry. juyeon’s were coveted with a layer of tears just seconds away from billowing over his lower lids when he sees that your face was reddening from shame as well. 

there was a heavy silence that could’ve killed you, and you wished it did. 

“are you waiting for me to ask--”

“no.”

“so what’s your explanation?”

you dump yourself on the edge of your bed, fingers pressing into your temples. if you pressed hard enough, maybe you could drill your fingers into your skull and rip out your brain.

“y/n.”

why did your own name sound so threatening when it comes from his lips?

“why did you do it? the fact that we were saving it so we could be each other’s first after marriage but you go ahead and do it with someone else--”

“oh, is that the only thing you care about? sex?”

“no, that’s not what i meant--”

“i thought you’d be pissed off over the fact that i have another guy in the picture regardless of our relationship--”

“which is exactly what i’m asking right now!”

the skin on your forehead gets pulled back when your palms hold back your hair. being interrogated by juyeon in just a bra and home shorts felt so humiliating, so degrading, but you can’t help but to have that pang of hatred for juyeon.

he was the one who incited this. all you did was react in a way disproportionate to your feelings.

“why’d you do it, y/n?”

his voice is shaky, and you were terrified to look up at him because you knew he was already crying. 

it shatters your heart; you were angry.

with him. 

with yourself.

his feet shuffles against the floor and he kneels before you, eyes desperately searching yours for any sign of remorse. his hands wrap around yours but you pull away with resentment, and you can’t help but to feel like he was guilt tripping you into apologising. 

it was my fault, but he incited it. 

“y/n--”

“stop, don’t touch me--”

“tell me what’s wrong, we’ll figure i--”

“tell you ‘what’s wrong’?” it takes alot of courage to shove him off and you lose sight of what was fuelling your emotions. “i’ll tell you what’s wrong, lee juyeon.”

he is shocked and you could almost hear something crack when he hears his name come off your tongue like you were regurgitating poison.

“you disappear off the face of earth for god knows how long and then when you finally show up again, it’s with another girl?”

it takes you awhile to notice you were now standing, and he was leaning back with his palms flat on the floor behind him. 

tears were streaming down the corners of his eyes and you know it was solely from the fact that he’s caught you red-handed but you weren’t showing signs of regret or remorse. 

it eats you that he thinks this is not his fault.

“look me in the eye and tell me confidently that you’ve been a responsible partner.”

gut-wrenching surprise writes itself across his face when the demand leaves your lips like venom. 

your eyes finally give in, hiccups starting to form in the back of your throat when the still silence gives you some kind of hint that this relationship was as good as gone. 

“i wait for you to reply for three days, sometimes more, and all you do is say ‘okay’ or ‘alright’ or ‘nah’-- how am i supposed to be convinced you are invested in this relationship? i haven’t seen you in like, what? four months?! not a proper text, no proper calls, you don’t bother to visit me though you know i can’t because of my work--”

the breathlessness in your chest is a cage with loosened screws and nails, an angry, uncontrollable beast inside waiting to lash out and give juyeon a tight slap across the face.

“ask yourself, lee juyeon,” the sobs become one with the hiccups, and droplets of agonising reality falls off the point of your chin. “who was that girl and why did you not bother to text me back? call me?”

his face falls as if he wasn’t already in a million pieces. the silence feels like a dozen paper cuts on your fingers and your lips cracking in the cold. it sounds like a the car on a roadtrip screeching to a violent stop, and it hurls both of you through the windshield.

your soul is bleeding when you see a muscle in his face twitch, because you now know he is as guilty as you are, even if he didn’t sleep with her. 

heartbreak forms a hand on the crown of your head and pushes you to nod. the tears along your jawline get wiped away with the back of your hand, the mucus running down your philtrum is a mess on your bare chest and your face is not recovered from the excessive crying in the last twelve hours. 

juyeon is quiet, but screaming in pain through his eyes. 

the weight of how broken the both of you were slams down on both your shoulders without warning, and you find enough energy to gulp and clear your throat.

“get out.”

the scene looks like a freeze-frame, and you shake your head at the sight of his unwillingness.

“get out, juyeon.”

it feels like a knife is being dragged across your throat when you say the last words you thought you’d ever say to him.

“we are through.”

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

PART 2

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

I know it's been said before buy I just have to say I know the whole demetri and yasmine plot was just so that all the gay undertones of the rivalry and obsession and tension between Demtri and hawk could be easily overlooked

Lololol Anon you’re not even WRONG

Once they yeeted Moon out of the picture the writers were like “Oh shit, better No Homo it again!!!”

I guess in the writer’s (very feeble) defense, they DID set it up kinda, by having Demetri be like “Wow!!! I’d love to have Yasmine spit in my face!!!” and then very atrociously trying to hit on her at the beach party. But I thought his sorta-crush on her was just supposed to be like...comic relief??? Like “haha look at this nerdy guy being hot for this sexy popular chick he’ll never, ever get, isn’t it good memes???” I mean, him coming on to her at the party and just FAILING at every level was so incredibly funny BECAUSE of how much someone like her was just...never going to go for a dude like that in a million years. Like I thought that was the whole joke??? And Cobra Kai seems a bit more realism-leaning than some teen shows in how the teenagers actually act, so I figured from that angle it was gonna be the trope of “nerdy guy into hot popular bitchy girl” set up...but then, Reality Ensues, and she’s not only not remotely interested, but mildly to moderately disgusted at the idea. And that’s the comedy of it.

So yeah, after Season 1, I thought we were done with that whole arc, and it was literally just like...a joke “love” subplot to balance out the more serious relationship difficulties Miguel was having at the time. But now...Yasmine’s back, I guess??? And she apparently did a full 180 and is sorta nice now and went through a bunch of Character Development offscreen, none of which we got to see? So I GUESS her and Demetri were hinted to eventually become a thing, just like...very, very poorly. And in “hints” I assumed we were in no way meant to take seriously at all.

But yeah, the Yasmine/Demetri thing DOES seem kinda thrown in last-minute, given how finished that arc felt back in s1. And we only ever really get to see Yasmine when she’s interacting with Demetri, so it really feels like she was only brought back to be his love interest, which like...VERY weird flex, Cobra Kai writers, but okay :/

It IS incredibly sus how much time and energy Hawk and Demetri devote to their rivalry in particular, rather than like...idk, moving on with their lives??? Just ignoring each other and doing their own things, now that they are officially no longer bros and are in different friend circles, etc etc? Like they go OUT OF THEIR WAY to fuck with each other when they could just like...chill and move on. Like Demetri, a socially-awkward dude with limited people skills, works up the balls to get onstage and roast Hawk in front of an entire partyful of peers. Hawk SEARCHES THROUGH AN ENTIRE SCHOOL to hunt down Demetri at the school fight. Hawk goes up to Demetri on the first damn day back at school just to GLARE at him ominously (which I also just realized is RIGHT after some freshman girls give Demetri moony looks as they pass--jealous much???) Later on, Hawk coulda ignored Demetri and finished eating lunch with his Cool New Friends, but instead he goes out of his damn way to bust Demetri’s project and then come over and roast him about it. Demetri then eagerly goes over and reciprocates said roasting and spends that entire fucking soccer game tryna screw with Hawk in particular. They fricken almost IMMEDIATELY go for each other in the Golf N Stuff fight, IIRC. Really, they devote more time and energy to each other and their Rivalry™️ than either does to like...any other character? Like are Eli’s thoughts 90% “what’s the next thing I can do to fuck with Demetri?” Are Demetri’s thoughts 90% “what’s the next thing I can do to fuck with Eli?” Because like...I just don’t think obsessing over another man that much, even in a negative context...is very straight XD

There’s also the fact that their arcs are WAY more intertwined with each other’s than ANY girl either of them dates or interacts with. I mean ffs, Moon dumped Hawk BECAUSE of how he treated Demetri--even Hawk’s supposed Straight Romantic Subplot™️ ties directly back into Demetri! And the only reason Demetri joins Miyagi-Do at ALL and doesn’t just like...fade into the background in Season 2 is to show HAWK SPECIFICALLY that he can “fight back.” And later we have DEMETRI being the one to make Hawk realize he’s gone too far with Cobra Kai (i.e. his guilt after breaking Demetri’s arm) and ultimately being the catalyst that makes Hawk SWITCH SIDES! I honestly think every major point of development for both characters directly involves the other in some way--you could even argue Eli initially becomes “Hawk” in part because Demetri quits Cobra Kai, and isn’t around to stick up for him anymore--so he has to find another way to protect himself from bullying. Even their sense of “dojo rivalry” is mostly just about each other--Hawk’s animosity toward Miyagi-Do lowkey seems to stem almost entirely from Demetri in particular joining it and “betraying” him, while Demetri’s animosity toward Cobra Kai basically entirely comes from Cobra Kai taking Eli away from him. I literally like...cannot think of a single thing in either of their developments that doesn’t tie into the other in a major way. 

Like to put it plainly, Moon and Yasmine feel like a single step in each of the boys’ character journeys--a single turning point to spur them in a certain direction. But Demetri and Hawk just...ARE each other’s character journeys. They’re not a step for the other to discover something about themself or get pushed in a certain direction--they just ARE the entire arc for each other, if that makes any sense. Like you could argue BOTH Demetri and Eli/Hawk’s arcs like 90% center on how to navigate their relationship when Eli gains confidence and their interests diverge and they no longer need each other the way they used to. Like??? Name ONE aspect of either of their arcs that doesn’t tie directly into their undying gay love friendship in some way??? It’s INCREDIBLY integral to both their stories and is just...SO much more compelling to watch than either of them making out with hot girls at parties or in the hallway. And them repairing their relationship and/or evolving it as needed, realizing that they love each other too much to let one another go, even if they’re both somewhat different after everything??? And realizing it’s a romantic kinda undying love they’re feeling, because really, what good reason is there for it NOT to be??? We HAVE enough male characters in media already with strictly platonic/brotherly friendships, why not just let two male characters with a compelling story, a strong prior friendship, and REALLY good romantic chemistry just like...be gay??? It feels natural, it’s a good ending to their arc, it feels narratively satisfying in a “Finally having the ‘will they or won’t they’ couple get together” kinda way...why not do it??? It makes ALL the damn sense and would be incredibly thematically interesting and SATISFYING, but y’all writers are COWARDS DAMMIT

Just gonna make that crack ship from Season 1 canon so we can prove that Demetri isn’t gay, no sir??? No Homo my guy??? We can only have one (1) LGBT character per television show, or the “traditional values” viewers will come for us???

Pre Season 3 I honest to god was hoping that part of Demetri’s arc, if he ran into Yasmine again, would be him realizing that he could honestly do better than someone that bitchy and vile, and having enough self-respect to just...lose interest in someone who’s going to push him around, act like he’s beneath her, and talk smack about his friends the second she thinks they’re “lame.” Maybe it isn’t too late though, and we’ll see this in Season 4? Here’s to hoping, because I am going to THROW HANDS if this fricken pairing is ENDGAME endgame. Like...what even do these people have in common, besides getting wedgies??? Do they even have like...any of the same interests??? At all??? How are they going to build a lasting relationship off of...both having gotten a wedgie? And being mean to people sometimes, I guess?

Like, sure. Let them date for a bit--they’re horny teens, they’re prone to jumping into relationships for not exactly the most deep and meaningful reasons. Physical attraction, teenage horniness, and raging hormones are no joke. So sure, I can see them having a fling solely because they both think the other’s hot. But you wanna tell me they’d LAST??? No SIR, I must inform you I Do Not Buy it.

(Tfw you meant to do a short ask making memes about what a crackship Demetri/Yasmine was in Season 1 and you ended up having WAY too much to say about All The Things and now it’s 3 am and you’re typing like a madman. I probably cycled back across the same 5 points like 5 times each because it’s late and I’m not thinking straight, I apologize.)

[scapegrace74-blog]

In Dreams

A/N  I don’t do Twitter, but roughly once a year I wish I did.  A few weeks back, some clever Outlander writers there came up with the idea of the Eye Sex Chronicles, in which various pre-relationship scenes between Jamie and Claire are re-imagined in a less PG way.  I asked Catrin Writes if I could join the party, and she kindly agreed.  And because I like nothing more than a challenge, the scene I chose is when Jamie comes for Claire after the Redcoat ambush in 1x01.  Rated mildly M, in case you care about that sort of thing.

Since he was a lad, Jamie had been visited by a recurring dream.  In it, he was chasing a figure through a forest.  His quarry materialized and dissolved like mist in the dappled light, with limbs as pale as bone and a thundercloud about its head.  A sidhe, perhaps, come to deceive him.

The details of the dream shifted, but the ending was always the same.  At the edge of a burn, he caught up with the apparition.  Staring into her peculiar golden eyes (for it was indeed a woman), the dirt beneath his feet gave way and he fell headlong into a bottomless unknown.  Then, he woke.

***

She had to be dreaming, Claire rationalized.  Or at least hallucinating.  It was the only explanation that fit the facts.  Redcoat soldiers wielding muskets.  Coarse ruffians speaking Gaelic and tossing her from horseback like a sack of laundry.  A Frank doppelganger trying to rape her.  Her subconscious must have muddled together her husband’s obsession with Scottish history and the emotional turmoil of their second honeymoon to produce this elaborate fantasy.  Sigmund Freud would rub his hands together with glee.

It didn’t explain, however, why she could feel every nettle and branch as they lashed against her limbs, or why the icy water of the stream she was following numbed her toes.  If she was only dreaming, she should stand still and wait for consciousness to return.  And if she were hallucinating, she doubted she’d be capable of analyzing her circumstances.  She ran because she was afraid to find out what might happen if she was wrong.   She ran because it was only a matter of time before her captors gave chase.

***

The ambush by a small patrol of Redcoats ended abruptly in the way of most skirmishes.  One minute he was fighting for his life, and the next he was leaning on his sword, sharing a flask of whisky with his brothers in arms.

Dougal had a ribald glint in his eye as he ordered Jamie to round up the Sassenach lass.  He thought he’d kept his reaction to her lovely face and near-nakedness well hidden in the dim firelight of the croft, but his uncle’s smirk said otherwise.  The men hooted as though it was a great joke - sending the virgin after the mettlesome wench.

It was only as he was retracing his steps to the strath where he’d thrown their captive from Donas’ back that he realized he was injured.  The muscles of his shoulder joint were still tender, just as she’d predicted after she’d manipulated the bones back into place.  This new pain was sharper and accompanied by the coppery tang of blood.  Compounded by the fact that he hadn’t slept or eaten more than a crust of bread in nigh on a day, it was no surprise that his head was feeling light and empty as a cloud, with a persistent buzzing sound filling his ears.  He continued his search, determined to find the lass before continuing on their way.  She’d mended him.  He at least owed her that much.

An ivory figure dashed between the trees, bringing to mind his dream.  Deja vu, the French called it.  The sense that he had lived this moment before, perhaps countless times.  Reality tilted sideways, and he could no longer discern what was true and what was illusion.  The memory of both his dream and his objective compelled him to give chase. He spurred his horse forward.

***

Damn it!  For a figment of her imagination, the tall red-headed Scot was annoyingly persistent.  Seumas.  Jamie.  Mowgli.  She’d heard the other men call him by many names, further evidence that this illogical adventure was just an inventive delusion.  She’d certainly conjured an attractive antagonist, with his raw potency and soulful blue eyes.  He was a bit too chiseled for her taste, and good lord he was gigantesque, but somehow he pulled it off without seeming a brute.  Despite the driving rain, the night spent on horseback wrapped together in his plaid hadn’t been unpleasant.  Unlike every other character in this illusion, he didn’t feel threatening.

He leapt from his horse and was approaching with his arms spread wide, a bloodied sword dangling from one hand in an offhand way.  She’d seen men approach unbroken horses in much the same manner.  Well, she was no docile mare, willing to accept the bit.  If he thought he could subdue her with sonorous words from his pretty lips, he had another thing coming.  She lifted her chin defiantly.  Maybe the way out of this nightmare was to refuse to play along.  She spat defiance in his direction, daring him to accost her.

***

Christ, she was beautiful.  It hadn’t escaped his notice when they’d first met, despite his dislocated shoulder.  But out here in the forest, with smudges of dirt marring her luminous skin and cockleburs matting her hair, she was every cautionary tale he’d learned at his father’s knee.  A bewitching siren come to lure his soul to sin.

If her foreign ways and total lack of meekness wasn’t evidence enough that she was the otherworldly creature from his dream, the violent mystery of her agate eyes confirmed it.  They were unforgettable, calling to him from across the ages.

Despite his better judgment, he stepped closer, saying something daft about throwing her over his shoulder, as though he’d ever demean her in that way.  Her breath came into short pants that caused her unbound breasts to rise and fall beneath her thin shift.  His fingers twitched, aching to touch her, to confirm that she was real.  Some lucid corner of his brain that wasn’t starved of blood and delirious with bloodlust argued that he’d spent many hours pressed up against her very mortal and lovely arse.  He ignored it in favour of another step in her direction.  Like a mindless beast, he sniffed the air.  She smelled like his mate.

***

She’d spent enough time around soldiers returning from the front to recognize the half-crazed look, the dilated pupils, the waves of sexual energy wafting off his skin.  The male animal confronted death and procreation with much the same physical response, opposite sides of the same coin.

She should have been frightened by his proximity, but instead she drew back her shoulders and stared directly into his marine gaze, daring him to take another step.  Delirious with disorientation and lack of sleep, she flirted with the combustible element that arced between them from the first.  She’d never behave so wantonly if she thought for a moment this was real. It was a harmless fantasy, made all the more appealing by the combination of artlessness and virility exuded by the man in question.

***

He dropped his sword, a useless defence against temptation.  His feet carried him forward of their own volition, answering the urgent summons in her eyes.  So close now, skirting the very edge of a precipice.  Surely his dream had been a prophecy, a foretelling of a critical juncture in his life.  Temptress or Sassenach healer, their paths were fated to cross.  There was nothing he could do to deny the hand of fate.

She’d backed against a tree and his palms came to rest on the ample swell of her hips.  He’d never touched a woman so close to her skin.  It was intoxicating, warm and supple.  She was no longer speaking, watching him instead with those predator’s eyes, wary but not afraid.  Her lips were pressed together, and he longed to pry them apart with his tongue, to taste her soul and share his own.  Bending slowly forward, the muscle in his beleaguered shoulder seized in sudden pain.  Bubbles of dizziness flooded his vision and he slumped forward, momentarily boneless, landing against her lush curves.

***

Christ, he was heavy.  One moment she had been certain he was about to kiss her senseless, and then he sagged forward, pinning her between his bloodstained torso and a tree.  Her nursing instincts sprang to life as she attempted to soothe him.  She ran her fingers through his tangled curls and over the abutments of his face, searching for a contusion and finding only tacky blood and prickly stubble.  She could feel his deep breaths echoing against her breastbone.  He groaned a word in Gaelic that made her wish she understood the tongue.

***

Pressed against her as he was, he marveled at the brilliance of God’s design.  She was soft where he was hard, a perfect counterpoint that answered the question his body had been asking since adolescence.   He wasn’t ignorant of carnal matters, but nor had he imagined that he could derive such pleasure merely from cleaving his body to hers.  In his previous trysts with with the young maids of his youth, it had never been so.

Her hands were surprisingly strong as they prodded his skin, seemingly drawn to the places that called out for her touch.   They skimmed gently over his shoulders.  The lancing pangs had faded like the morning mist, leaving him conscious only of the pulsing ache radiating from his groin.  He’d been hard beneath his plaid since fighting the Redcoats, but it had progressed to the brink of pain.   Certainly she could feel it, barely clad as she was, but he felt no shame in the knowledge.  There was a deeper magic at work here, far outside the laws of propriety.

***

Her fingertips touched the bands of muscle along his flank, having snuck unawares beneath his filthy shirt.  Her arms opened to span his torso, no longer pretending to minister to his wounds and instead holding him tight, in case he was considering retreat.  It helped that she couldn’t see his face, hidden as it was beyond her hair, but she could read the impulse on his dewy skin and through the vibration of his every sinew.  He wanted her.  Not only because she was a female body close at hand, but on some more fundamental level.  She wanted him as well, but that was the dream talking.

***

The thinnest filament held back the raging storm inside of him.  What few thoughts he could maintain circled around the inscrutable riddle of her identity.  If she truly was the vision from his dream, then what was her purpose?  And if she was flesh and blood, then why did she tolerate his trespass?  His answer came in the form of a whimper, sneaking from her lips to his ear and straight to his cock.  The cord snapped, and he began to rut against her in earnest, the coarse wool of his plaid scratching his swollen flesh.  

Dhia, it was a thousand times greater than any pleasure his own hand could inflict, and yet it was woefully deficient. His hips pressed forward with more force, grinding their bones together, seeking a home inside her warmth.  Rather than retreat, she answered with advances of her own.  She shuddered and moaned, her nails biting into the scars across his back.  He had no language to describe what her body was demanding.  He hurtled towards an unknowable point, both hunter and prey in a breathless pursuit.  It was bottomless and inescapable, just as in his dream.

***

She’d lost all sense of herself.  There was no Claire.  No Frank.  No everlasting dream about Scottish outlaws.  Even the rough bark of the tree against which she was pinned was gone.  All that remained was the bitter agony of incompletion and the solid male form that could deliver her from it.  She whimpered, tears of frustration leaking from her eyes.  She wanted... no, she needed more.  More contact.  More friction.  More of his sublime body that answered every question she asked it wordlessly.

Broad palms slipped down to cup her ass, then lifted her as though she was made of feathers.  At that first perfect moment of connection, she cried out.  The depths opened up beneath them and her only fear was that she would fall alone.  Clamping her thighs around his hips, she circled and writhed directly over the defined prominence of his cock.  They both groaned as twin spasms spun outward from where they were fused together.  The hot rush of his eruption warmed her belly, shaking from the force of her own contractions.

The fever crept away as inexplicably as it came, leaving her stippled in gooseflesh and drowning in turmoil.  What had just happened?  Had she really allowed this stranger, this walking paradox, to bring her to gratification, fully clothed, against the trunk of some bloody Scottish tree?  And oh, when would she wake up and return to the mundane struggles of her real life? This, whatever it was, was too much to endure.

***

At the first twitch of her body after endless moments of utter stillness, he lowered her gently to her feet.  He could feel his release trickling down his thigh.  Rather than address him, if only to slap him as he deserved, she turned towards the burn.  She knelt for a long time, drinking from her cupped palm and splashing water over her face.  Doubtless, she was also rinsing his seed from her skin.  He burned with remorse.  Sidhe or not, he’d treated her contemptibly.  

The rush of blood between his ears was slowing, leaving him shaky and weak.  He bent to retrieve his sword and the ground tilted aslant beneath him.  By the time she returned from the burn, her eyes demurely focused downwards, he had mounted Donas and was able to lift her over the withers with his good arm.  He tried in vain to keep from pressing up against her, trying to atone for his previous behaviour.  They set off in search of Dougal and the others without another word.

***

The further they rode, the more Claire became convinced she had hallucinated the entire thing.  The young Scot named Jamie was still kind and solicitous, offering her a slug of whisky and sharing his plaid as the night air grew cold, but he betrayed no proof of their intimate encounter.  Along with everything else that was happening, it was too much to contemplate, so she pushed it to the back of her mind.

Well past midnight, she felt his bulk behind her slide sideways as he started to topple to the ground.

“Stop!  Help, he’s going over!”

Leaping to the ground and ordering the other men about like a petty general, she poured whisky into the newly discovered wound that pierced the trapezius muscle.  Yet more evidence, if she was looking for it, that their union in the forest had all been in her head.  Who could please a lover while bleeding out from a gunshot?

Jamie sputtered back to consciousness beneath her hands.

“Welcome back,” she commented pertly.

***

The blank screen in front of his eyes reassembled around the familiar faces of Murtagh, Dougal, Angus and the others, peering down at him in the gloom.  He must have fallen deep asleep while they fled to Leoch.  His memories were foggy, but he recalled a dream of chasing a mysterious woman through a wooded strath, catching her by the edge of a burn, and then...  well, it wouldn’t be the first time his sleeping mind brought him gratification, although generally not on horseback.

“I’m all right.  Just a wee bit dizzy,” he tried to convince the assemblage, eager to get back on his horse.  They couldn’t afford a delay.

“You're not all right,” an oddly familiar English voice pronounced.   Without waiting for him to respond, she launched into a tirade.

“Couldn’t you tell how badly you were bleeding? You're lucky you're not dead, brawling and fighting and throwing yourself off horses.”

He stared up in disbelief at her fiercely beautiful face, the one he recognized from his dreams.

She was here.

[chloelucia13]

Part 3: Eye of the Hurricane

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

Prompt: After your breakup with Spencer, you tried everything in your power to forget him, to grow from what happened. However, life (especially yours) doesn’t work that way 

Warnings: a lot more angst, language, violence, gore, kidnapping, mentions of death, it’s a doozy

Word Count: 6406

A/N: And here’s part 3! This one is by far the darkest, so I would advise not reading if you’re sensitive to anything mentioned in the warnings. This part involves the kidnapping of Maeve, but if you noticed, I didn’t put death in the warnings because (unlike literally everyone in television and movies) I won’t be using any woman’s death to further a man’s character arc. 

Tags: @sojournmichael​

Part one, part two 

It had been a month.

A month of pain, of heartache so unbelievably miserable that at one point you thought you were having a heart attack.

But you couldn’t stop yourself from thinking of him, thinking of every detail about him.

His laugh echoed in your mind, the sound that was once so sweet but now left a bitter taste on your tongue.

Each night, as you tried to lull yourself to sleep, you retraced the steps up to his apartment. Through the double doors, past the second pair of doors that separated the mailboxes from the rest of the apartments, into the entryway, up the flight of fifteen wooden steps, turn to the right, second door on the left. 

You wondered if this was how Spencer felt, able to recall any memory at will with great detail.

You wondered if he had even thought of you at all. 

Stop.

With a sigh, you pushed yourself to your feet to get another cup of tea, your blanket wrapped snugly around your shoulders. The warmth of the water radiating through the ceramic and caressing your fingers was the only thing that kept you aware, in the moment.

You tossed your old tea bag in the trash and retrieved a new one, plopping it in the water before carrying the mug back over to your perch, the place in your apartment that you rarely left these days.

After he left, the apartment felt so... big. So vast and empty and haunting that you confined yourself to a small area and didn’t stray away from it.

You felt like Ed Gein, boarding yourself up into one area of your home and living like a hermit.

But instead of the memories of your parents haunting you, confining you into a small area, it was Spencer. 

You couldn’t make yourself clean up his things that were scattered about your apartment. His razor on your bathroom sink, his mug in your kitchen cabinet, his clothes in the top two drawers of the dresser in your bedroom. That wasn’t to mention the dozens of pictures of the two of you hung up on the walls, tucked into the corners of the vanity in your room, placed on your bedside table. 

He had made his home inside your apartment to the point that it no longer felt like your apartment.

So there you sat, perched on your couch that sat against your wall, your legs pulled up to your chest as your body was turned to look out the open window behind the couch, a mug cupped in your hands and permanent bags under your eyes.

The smell of rain wafted into your apartment. Petrichor. 

That was the only word you had said in the past three days. Your voice was hoarse from disuse, and it felt alien on your tongue.

Every word felt alien on your tongue, as if you were speaking a language you didn’t know. As if you were possessed, spewing out a dead dialect that you spat from your mouth like venom.

For the first few weeks, people bombarded you with calls. Penelope, JJ, Alex, even Derek. Even Emily. It seemed like everyone knew, and everyone wanted to help you in any way you can. However, you just pushed them away, assuring them that you were fine. 

It seems that they got the hint, for the most part, as you now only received the stray text from Penelope, asking if you wanted her to come over or if you needed her to go grocery shopping for you.

No matter how much you let yourself wallow and suffer at night and on weekends, you knew that you still had a responsibility and hundreds of patients who relied on you.

Going to work seemed to be the only thing you did nowadays (well, outside of your house, that is). And as strange as it sounds, talking to the patients you knew so well seemed to help pull you out of that rut, at least for the moment.

Helping people was your pride and joy, even though you weren’t able to help yourself.

Before you knew it, you had already drained your second cup of tea. With a sigh, you placed the mug on the coffee table and rose to your feet to draw the window closed.

This was your least favorite time of night. Once the window was closed, the hustle and bustle of Washington D.C. immediately faded away to static silence, making you feel like you were in a soundproof room with all of your thoughts screaming at you.

And screaming was never easy to sleep through.

***

Your cheeks were warm when you woke up.

Tonight was one of the “better” nights, one where you dreamt of kisses being exchanged and holding one another being held in safe, comforting arms. Though it did nothing to help you move on, it was much preferred to the nightmares you were used to. Nightmares that held screaming and venomous words and one final gunshot that rang in your ears when you woke up in a cold sweat.

You pressed “stop” on your alarm before reluctantly rising from your couch and wrapping your blanket around your shoulders, feeling a strange chill flow through the room. With a palm pressed to your closed eye, you wandered into your kitchen and grabbed a bagel, placing it between your teeth as you filled up a glass of water. 

A small creak in your bedroom made the hair on the back of your neck stand on end. You spat the bagel out of your mouth and pulled a knife from your knife block with quivering hands, the familiar feeling of panic settling in your chest. “Hello?” you shouted, knuckles flooding white.

There was silence, and after a moment of waiting, you let out a sigh and placed the knife back down on the counter. God, why am I being so paranoid?

You chugged down the glass of water before clutching onto your blanket with both hands, holding it securely around your shoulders as you glanced around the room.

The window was open.

“God, I’m such an idiot,” you whispered, shuffling your feet over to the window and pushing it shut, listening to the nearly-silent sealing sound that the window breathed out before flipping the latch, locking it in place.

And then your back collided with your hardwood floor, all the air leaving your lungs and a stinging sensation beginning to burn along your scalp. 

A gasp fell from your lips as a foot stood on your stomach, pinning you in place as a hand clutched the neck of a full wine bottle, swinging it down and having it connect against your temple before your vision faded to black.

***

With a sputtering cough, you came to, eyes darting around the room with panic. “Good, you’re both awake!” a woman’s voice hummed, stepping in front of you and staring you in the eye. “Now we just need one more.”

“What are you doing?” you hissed, not daring to break eye contact. “What’s going on?”

She scoffed. “Y/N, for having a doctorate in psychology, you’re not that bright.” She stepped out of your viewpoint, revealing another woman who seemed to be in the same predicament as you. Your eyes glanced her over before you turned your head to look at the other woman. “I’ll be back. You two behave now.”

With a smirk, she stepped stepped out the door.

You waited for her footsteps to fade away before scooting your chair over to the other woman, examining her bindings and her face. “We’re gonna get out of here,” you immediately reassured her. “Did she say why you’re here?”

She searched your face, a crease in her brow and water in her eyes. “She-she said I took something from her,” she whispered, biting down on her lower lip.

You nodded, tugging your wrists against your binds for a moment. “What’s your name?”

“Maeve.”

Oh my god.

The puzzle pieces started to fit together in your mind as you examined her once more.

Pretty dark brown hair tied up into a ponytail with bangs and strands of hair to frame her face. A pretty cardigan and shirt with jeans. A pretty face. A pretty body.

Pretty.

“What?” she urged, taking note of the look that settled upon your face. “What’s wrong?”

You shook your head, quickly blinking the tears away. “Oh, it’s nothing. That name, I-it’s just... familiar.” You gulped, forcing a smile on your face. “We’re gonna get out of here, Maeve. You’re gonna be just fine.”

Her lower lip trembled, but she nodded. “Okay.”

You nodded with her, glancing around the room. “What do you do for work, Maeve?”

She gulped, letting out a shuddering breath. “I’m a geneticist.”

Pretty and smart. Good going, Spence.

“Your name is Y/N?” she asked, pulling you from your spiral.

You nodded. “Yeah, it is.”

“What do you do for work, Y/N?” A small smile sat on your lips. “I’m a psychologist.”

She gave you a smile in return. “That sounds like an amazing job.”

“Well, it’s not as cool as being a geneticist, but it’s pretty nice.”

That earned a chuckle from her before her lips pressed together, forming a thin line. 

The rest of the time that you two were alone, you were both silent. 

***

It had been about an hour before the woman returned, now with a limp body in her arms. You could hear the thump of the body as she dragged it up the flight of stairs and into the room you and Maeve were tucked away in. 

It was a man’s body, and by the way Maeve’s breath audibly fled from her lungs, it was one that she knew.

The woman situated the man in another rolling chair, binding his wrists with zip ties in the same way that yours were bound.

you could assume by the blood on his temple that he was also knocked out like you were, and you knew that if either of you didn’t get help for the definite concussions both of you sported, things would be going downhill fairly quickly.

He woke up within moments, a groan falling from his lips. This alerted the woman of his new awareness, as she walked over to him, placing her hand on his shoulder. “You know,” she sighed, “I couldn’t understand it, Bobby. I really couldn’t.” She stopped in front of him, crouching down and whispering in his ear, “You could have had me. Instead you wanted that.”

She grabbed the arms of Bobby’s chair and spun him around, forcing him to face Maeve, who was only feet from him. Tears were dripping down her face, the look that mirrored that of a kicked puppy on her face.

“Maeve?” he whispered, to which she nodded.

“I’m so sorry,” she cried, casting her gaze to the ground. 

“Why are you doing this! Why!”

“Let’s just say, Maeve here has a habit of taking things from people,” the woman hissed before snapping her gaze to you, holding the barrel of a gun against Bobby’s temple. “Isn’t that right, Y/N?”

Your heart dropped to your shoes and bile rose in your esophagus. You shook your head fervently. “No,” you choked out.

“No? Are you sure? Because from what I know, I think she has.”

“Y/N, what is she talking about?” Maeve urged, and you looked over at her with tear-blurred vision.

“Maeve already took Bobby from me, but she also took someone from both of us.”

“Shut up!” you screamed, clenching your teeth.

She just chuckled, walking away from Bobby and stepping over to you, her gun now trained on you. “Oh come on, Y/N. Tell me, how long were you and Spencer together? How much did she take away from you?”

“What?” Maeve gasped out, her eyes growing wide as she examined your profile.

“We were together for almost a year,” you finally breathed out, tilting your head up to the ceiling to try and keep the tears at bay. 

“See, Y/N? She took him from you, and then me. It’s all her fault.”

“You never had him, you sick bitch.” You shook your head before directing your gaze on the woman. “None of this is her fault. She didn’t know. But this...” With your limited range of hand movements, you circled your hand around the room. “This is all your fault.”

“No, don’t you dare turn this on me!” she shrieked. “This is all her fault! She took my life from me!” Her demeanor instantly changed, becoming calm and collected, though her voice wavered slightly. “So, I decided, if I can’t have my life, I’m gonna take hers.” 

The woman cocked her gun, and your brain worked a mile a moment to try and distract her. 

“What are you talking about? She did nothing to you! We did nothing to you!” Bobby shouted out. “Maeve, what is she talking about?”

“I-I don’t know. I don’t know who she is,” she stuttered out, her chest rising and falling with rapid breaths.

“After hunting her for ten months, after stealing her man-” she gestured to Bobby- “After her stealing your man-” she pointed at you- “I had to stop and say, what is so freaking special about her? I couldn’t see it. Until I saw him.”

“Him who?” Bobby huffed.

“The night you followed her, I followed you. And I saw him.” You worked quickly to try and connect the puzzle that was lying in front of you, your jaw dropping when you finally realized. 

“I want what they have,” she concluded. “What Y/N and him had. I want him.”

“That’s why you’re doing this?” Bobby scoffed, challenging her. “Because of this stupid FBI agent?”

“That stupid FBI agent is the reason you’re still alive!” 

As she directed her attention back to Bobby, Maeve turned to face you. “I’m so sorry,” she mouthed, guilt-ridden. You just shook your head and gave her a pained smile.

“You’re gonna get them to tell me about him,” the woman continued, jamming her gun into Bobby’s neck.

“I don’t want to hear what she has to say,” he shouted back as his resolve began to crumble, his lower lip quivering.

“I know. But it wasn’t a request.”

He just clenched his jaw, unwilling to speak. She let out a huff before stomping over to a table behind you, shuffling through a few papers before walking back over to Maeve, crouching between you and her with a stack of papers in her hand.

“So, let’s talk about this, hmm?” She grinned at Maeve. “Because this I didn’t expect.” She glanced between you and Bobby. “Oh, I’m sorry. let me catch you two up. I found these letters in Maeve’s loft. And I guess she didn’t get around to sending this one, and... It’s really good.” She cleared her throat before speaking. “’I bought the blindfold today. I can’t wait to use it.’ Blindfold.”

At this point, your teeth were so tightly clenched together that you were sure your teeth were going to shatter.

“You know, I thought I knew your fiancee. But I guess she’s kinkier than we thought.” “It’s not what you think,” Maeve’s voice hummed, and you noticed how her eyes flashed over to you for a moment.

“’It’s not what you think’ is girl code for ‘it’s exactly what you think.’”

“No, it’s not what you think.”

“Did you sleep with him?”

“I never even saw him.”

“Why risk your life to meet him?” “I’ve been alone for so long, I just wanted to be with somebody. But if I knew about...”

“You could’ve been with Bobby.”

“It was different with him.”

“Different how?”

“He was just...”

“he was just what Maeve?” Bobby pushed, his fuse growing shorter by the second.

“When we would talk, I would... It was effortless,” Maeve breathed out, and you couldn't help but notice the glimmer in her eye when she thought of Spencer.

“That is so interesting,” the woman deadpanned, pushing herself to her feet and rushing over to Bobby, waving her gun around erratically. “You see, when men cheat, it’s below the belt. But when women cheat, it’s above the neck.”

“No, we were broken up. I never cheated on you.”

“But someone cheated on someone.” The woman stared between you and Maeve as she spoke.

“I told you it wasn’t her fault!” you hissed, thrashing your arms in your binds.

“You never really loved me, did you?” Bobby spoke up. “Not like you loved him, anyways.”

The woman feigned an empathetic look, sinking to her knees in front of Bobby. “Now you know how I felt, to be ignored, cast aside. It’s not fun, is it?”

As she spoke, bile rose in your throat. You hated how much you understood exactly what she was saying. You were like her, in a loveless relationship with a man who was too focused on another woman.

No, don’t think like that.

“Let us go, goddammit!” Bobby shouted, startling you out of your thoughts. “What else do you want?”

“Oh, so, so much more,” she hummed sweetly, walking back over to Maeve and standing behind her. “You had him eating out of the palm of your hand every Sunday, and he never even saw your face. I have to admit, that takes skill. That takes finesse.” She turned to look at you. “how does it feel, Y/N? Knowing Spencer was in love with a woman he had never met, ever even seen, when he still had you?”

“Shut up,” you spat through your teeth.

She just chuckled, pushing Maeve’s chair forward so her and Bobby were facing each other, so close that her knees were touching his. “How’d you do it, Maeve? I think your audience would like to know.”

Maeve stayed silent, her lips pressed together tightly.

“Hello!” the woman shouted. “Doctor, are you in there? Seriously? Ok, fine.” With a jerk of her hand, she fired a round into the ground, the gun settled between Maeve and Bobby. You all flinched from the noise, and adrenaline coursed through your veins. You tugged harder at your binds.

“Just tell her,” Bobby demanded.

“There was a moment when you had him. When you knew you had him. What was it?”

“Euclidean geometry,” Maeve breathed out finally, her voice trembling, but you couldn’t tell if it was from terror or from sadness. “There’s this thing called the Penrose triangle. He told me a story about how he tried to build one when he was 8.”

“This better get sexy quick. I’m getting bored,” the woman hummed, her hip jutted out.

“You can’t build it. It’s an impossible physical structure. It only exists in conceptual geometry. But I said every Penrose triangle has its thorns. he laughed. It was a stupid pun, but he laughed.”

“That’s it.” She huffed, grabbing the arms of Maeve’s chair and turning Maeve so her back was facing Bobby. “I finally sees what he sees. He sees you as an equal. That’s it, isn’t it?” The woman turned to face you. “How do you feel about that.”

You gulped, thinking for a moment. You decided that if you played her game, you’d gain more time, so with a sigh, you spoke the words that had plagued your mind when Maeve spoke: “I don’t think I can remember the last time I heard him laugh.”

The woman’s lips pursed, clearly satisfied, and she rose to her feet. “Well, I know his secret now. As long as he can see me as his equal, he can love me. Like he loved you two.”

“Great, you figured it out,” Bobby deadpanned. “Now, please, will you let us go?”

“No.” She walked over to him, glaring down at him. “I have to show her that I can take everything she has. Then she’s going to remember me. And  I can get what she took from me. You, however, are superfluous.” She grabbed Bobby’s chair and wheeled him back, pushing the back of his chair against the back of Maeve’s. “Sorry, Bobby. You’ve always been runner up in this beauty pageant.”

“Wait, Wait, wait, wait,” Bobby begged, and you watched in horror as the woman solidly pressed the barrel of the gun against Bobby’s temple. “Please, Maeve...”

“Don’t hurt him,” Maeve urged. “Please! Please don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt him.”

But it was to no avail.

You squeezed your eyes shut as a gunshot rang through the empty warehouse, biting your tongue so hard to keep from screaming that the bitter taste of iron flooded your mouth.

You were all silent as the woman pulled the chair that held Bobby’s lifeless body, dragging it into a room that branched off from the main room that you were being held in. 

“You still don’t know who I am, do you?” the woman sighed, leaning against a desk. 

“No,” Maeve stated simply, though her voice revealed that she was still shaken. “I’ve tried and tried to remember and I can’t. But whatever I did to you, I’m sorry. Forgive me. Tell me what it is you want me to say to you and I’ll say it.”

“Why am I here?” you spoke up, your breath nearly hitching when you felt the zipties give a little.

“Because I needed Maeve to see everyone she ruined,” the woman said, not even sparing a glance at you. “And because Spencer still loves you, and if Maeve wouldn’t lead him here, you definitely would.”

“What makes you think he still loves me? I don’t know if you remember, but he left me. He doesn’t want me.”

“Oh honey, don’t be so naive.”

“I just want this to be over,” Maeve breathed out, which clearly caught the woman’s attention.

“I can do that.” Slowly, the woman grabbed a pair of wire cutters and rushed over to Maeve, clipping the zipties around Maeve’s wrists. “You just have to do something for me first.”

Maeve could barely nod before the woman yanked Maeve out of her chair, pushing her out of the room and out of your sight.

A bad feeling settled in the pit of your stomach, and you scooted over to the table where the woman laid all of her gear. Your eyes searched through the items as you tried your hardest to yank just one hand free from its binds.

Finally, after a minute or so of pulling, you pulled so hard that your hand slipped out. You let out a small cry of pain, tears welling in your eyes as your hand throbbed. It was definitely dislocated, but you pushed on, grabbing onto the wire cutters with all the strength you could muster and cutting your other hand free.

The echoing of footsteps coming from the stairwell startled you slightly, rushing to put the wire cutters back into place before moving back to your original spot, acting as if your hands were still bound. 

The woman yanked Maeve into the room, tossing her into her chair and strapping her wrists down with one hand while the other held her phone. You shot Maeve a quizzical look, wondering what happened to her while she was gone. She just shook her head, biting down on her lower lip to keep from crying out. 

Meanwhile, the woman typed on her phone before holding it next to Maeve’s mouth. 

“Hello?”

You thought you were about to vomit.

What did Spencer get himself into?

“Hey, it’s me,” Maeve spoke, her face ridden with guilt as she risked a glance at you.

“Are you okay?”

“She killed Bobby.” “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. We’ve both got concussions and some bruising, but we’re okay.”

“We?”

He didn’t even know you were there. He didn’t care.

You couldn’t help but notice the twisted smile on the woman’s face at Spencer’s words. Meanwhile, Maeve looked at if she was about to burst at any moment, so filled with guilt and misery that she could barely handle it. 

“Y/N’s here with me,” Maeve sobbed out.

He was silent, but you could practically hear all of the thoughts running through his mind. “Can... Can I talk to her?” he spoke finally.

The woman smirked, stepping away from Maeve and going over to you. You silently prayed that she wouldn’t notice your freed wrists, holding your breath as she finally put the receiver near your mouth. 

“Hi Spencer,” you choked out, squeezing your eyes shut.

“I... I’m so sorry.”

You sniffled, but stayed silent, not knowing what else to say.

“You’re going to be okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.”

“I know.”

He sighed. “Can I talk to Diane?”

You looked back at the woman, at Diane. “No. She’s listening.”

“Good. But I want to meet her. I need to see her face to face.”

Diane hurried back over to Maeve, jamming the gun into the back of her neck to urge her to talk. “She has a message she wants me to give to you,” Maeve rushed out.

“What is it?” Spence spoke.

“The message is, she left you a present. And if you want to find it, it’s easy as pie.”

“What does that mean? I don’t understand what that means.”

“Neither do I.” 

“Spencer, it’s a trap,” you shouted out. “If you come here, she’s gonna kill you or us-” Your words fell short as Diane ran over to you and connected her fist with your jaw. You gripped onto the armrests of the chair and bit back a hiss.

She hung up the phone.

***

Police sirens wailed through the empty night, a small sob bubbling up in your throat as the red and blue lights shone through the large window.

Diane was giddy with excitement, hurrying over to the intercom and holding the button down. “Take your gun and vest off,” she instructed, glancing back at you and Maeve. “Now come in alone.” She pressed another button before going over to your two, arranging your chairs so you were sat side-by-side, facing a singular chair that laid about ten feet from you both.

The creak of the old door echoed into the room and you extended your pinky out until it brushed over Maeve’s. She gripped onto your pinky with hers as you both exchanged a look, tears swimming in both of your eyes.

You counted his footsteps, heart rate increasing as they grew nearer and nearer. Diane stepped out of the room, just out of your sight, and you wound your jaw tightly shut.

“Put it on,” she demanded.

A moment later, two pairs of footsteps stepped into the room, and your eyes lingered on Spencer’s form as he appeared from behind a shelf, his eyes covered with a strip of fabric. Diane led him into the room with a gun to his back.

“Can I take off the blindfold?” Spencer asked.

“No,” she grumbled, shoving him down into the chair that faced you and Maeve.

He was silent for a moment, his lips parted. “Hello.”

“Hi,” Maeve whispered, tightening her grip on your pinky.

You were silent, your lips pursed.

“I was hoping you’d figure out my riddle,” Diane hummed, one hand deftly unbuttoning his shirt.

The shirt you bought him for your six month anniversary.

“I mean, I knew you would,” she continued. “The fun was just how fast you’d do it.” Her hand slid down his chest, gliding underneath his shirt. “All this, and brains too.” 

“It took me a long time,” Spencer hummed, humoring her. “To be honest, I was distracted by your thesis.” She pulled away, stepping back to look at him. “You read my thesis?” She was beaming.

“I did. You know, I think your writing can put you on the same plane as Jonas Salk. I’ve already sent it in to the NIH.”

She stomped away. “Flattery is not gonna get you out of this. I know what’s waiting for me outside.”

“I’ve arranged for your freedom.”

The federal government doesn’t make deals with people like me.”

“Not true. Nazi scientists were recruited for the Manhattan Project. Mafia bosses are regularly put into Witness Protection. If what you have is valuable enough, the federal government will work with you. And what you have is very valuable.”

She rose the gun to his throat. “And what do I have, doctor?”

“You have a brain that doesn’t play by normal societal rules. And I know that all your life, the people you care about the most keep leaving. There’s a part of you that thinks it’s because of that brain. Well, I’m here because I’m not going to leave you. I’m here because... I just hope that I get the chance.” “Chance at what?”

“To be with you.”

As he spoke, you knew he wasn’t telling the truth to Diane. But you did know, however, that he was speaking to someone in the room.

And that someone wasn’t you.

“Me for her, that was the deal, right?” Spencer spoke up. “Me for them.”

“You’re choosing me over them?” Diane questioned.

“Diane, how could it be anyone else?”

“Prove it.” 

“Alright. How?”

“Say it again.” She stepped behind him. “This time say it to their faces.” She yanked the blindfold off, revealing both of you to him.

His eyes flickered between you two, letting out a breath. You dropped your gaze to the floor, too scared to look him in the eye. Slowly, your grip fell from Maeve’s.

“I don’t love you,” his voice rang through your ears, sounding too familiar to you. Sounding so similar to the nightmares that plagued your mind nearly every night. “Sorry.”

“I understand,” Maeve choked out, though her voice didn't waver.

Diane let out a sigh of relief. “I don’t need her anymore,” she breathed out, rushing over to Maeve, pointing the gun to her head.

“Kill her and she won’t have to live with the fact that you’re smarter,” he shouted, distracting Diane. “Let her live with her irrelevancy.”

Diane squatted down next to Maeve, clipping one of her zipties. She rose back up a moment later, aiming the gun back at Maeve’s head. “I just want her to see one more thing. And Y/N, you should watch too.”

You gritted your teeth but looked up, following her movements with your eyes as she knelt down next to Spencer and pressed her lips to his. He seemed disgusted, but didn’t pull away, taking deep breaths to stay on task.

She pulled away from him a few moment later, searching his eyes. “Liar,” she hissed. She shot up to her feet, aiming the gun at his chest. “Liar!”

He grabbed her hands and aimed the gun above his head as she fired, the shot ringing through the building. As they wrestled for the gun, you turned and worked to help Maeve out of the other zip tie. 

Stomping boots neared the second floor where you were held, and another gunshot rung out. Spencer stumbled to the ground, and you yanked Maeve’s zip tie with all the strength you had left in your body.

“Stay back! Stay back! Stay back!” Spencer shouted, and you looked up to see Hotch aiming his gun directly at Diane.

Diane grabbed Maeve from her chair and held Maeve against her chest, pressing the gun against Maeve’s temple.

“Diane, there’s still a way out of this!” Spencer begged.

“You never wanted me,” Diane cried. “Never!”

She was growing angry rapidly, and you knew this was your last chance to keep Maeve safe.

“Kill me instead.”

Everyone grew silent at your words, their gazes directed at you. “What?” Diane whispered.

“Kill me instead,” you urged. “Let Maeve live with her pain. Killing Maeve might hurt Spencer, but it’ll wreck him if you kill me.”

She kept her eyes on you as you slowly rose from your chair, making your way over to her and Maeve. “Don’t-”

“Spencer won’t be able to live with the fact that he ruined my life. He hurt me while I was living, and I’ll take that pain to my deathbed. He couldn’t live with himself.”

You watched her contemplate her options for a moment before shoving Maeve forward and replacing her with you, shoving the barrel of the gun sharply against your neck. Spencer grabbed Maeve and directed her to run before he turned his gaze back to you.

“Y/N-” he started, only for you to shake your head.

“I hate you, Spencer,” you choked out, letting the tears finally stream down your face. “You broke me.”

You flinched slightly as she cocked her gun, letting all of your inhibitions flow out with a deep breath before you grabbed onto the gun and yanked it from her grip.

She shouldered you to the ground, but you kept your grip tight on the gun as she tried to wrestle it out of your hands. 

But with one jab to the nose, your grip loosened enough for her to fire a bullet straight into your lower abdomen.

A moment later, another shot rang out, and her body slid off of you.

Everything moved in a slow haze as you tried to focus on anything but the blood gushing out of your stomach. Your tongue darted out to wet your lips, eyes slowly beginning to fall shut.

“Hey, hey, stay awake for me.” With a wince, you forced your eyes open to stare straight into a pair of hazel ones. “Is Maeve okay?” you coughed out, searching his face.

“Why did you do that? I had her,” Spencer questioned, brushing your hair away from your face.

“I’m not the one you need, Spence. Not the one you want.”

His lower lip trembled, eyes dripping with tears. “I’m so sorry, Y/N. I’m so, so sorry.”

A gasp stumbled past your lips when you felt an immense pressure on your wound, tears spilling over your face when you squeezed your eyes shut. “Is she okay?” 

“What?”

“Is Maeve okay?” Another surge of pain coursed through your body and you let out a cry. 

“Hey, it’s okay. The medics are supposed to be here any moment now. Just hold on for me.” 

“Spencer, is she okay?”

You heard him breathe out a shuddering sigh. “Yeah, she’s okay. You saved her.”

***

A tickling in your nose made your eyes flutter open, wincing slightly from the bright lights. One hand reached up to soothe the itch, only for your hand to be pulled away. 

“Hey, don’t mess with that,” a voice cooed. You turned your head towards the sound, seeing Spencer search your face, worry marring his features.

“How long was I out?” you breathed, voice rough with disuse.

“About 12 hours.” He reluctantly let go of your hand, instead resting his hands on the side of your bed. “How do you feel?”

“Like I just got shot.” You let out a chuckle, but Spencer didn’t find very funny. “I’m okay, Spencer. Really.”

“If the bullet was 3 millimeters to the right it would’ve hit your spine. You could’ve been paralyzed from the waist down. Do you understand how reckless you were?”

“Well, everyone’s safe and Diane’s dead. That sounds like a pretty good outcome to me.”

“You could’ve died!” “Maybe I wanted to fucking die!” You stared him in the eye for a moment before leaning back into the bed, closing your eyes.

“You don’t mean that,” he whispered.

“It seems you don’t really know me at all. Too busy spending ten out of the eleven months we were together talking to another woman.” You sniffled, adjusting the blanket on your bed. “Shouldn’t you be with her anyways? She probably needs someone with her more than I do.”

He was silent, and you watched his hands retreat off of your bed. “Why did you risk your life for her?”

“Because she didn’t deserve to die.”

“But that’s not the only reason.”

“Because...” You pursed your lips, tilted your head up to look up at the ceiling. The words ebbed and flowed in your mind, but none of them were right. “Because I still want you to be happy. Because I’m a fucking masochist, I guess. I hurt myself to help the ones I love, even if they don’t love me back.”

For what seemed like the first time in his life, he had no clue what to say.

Finally, with a sigh, he buried his head in his hands.

“Maeve is gone,” he choked out.

You shifted your gaze back to him. “What?”

“She left. She just... disappeared. She left me a note telling me not to find her.”

You wrapped your arms around yourself, chewing on your lower lip. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “You shouldn’t be the one apologizing.” He pulled his head from his hands, looking into your damp eyes with his red-rimmed ones. “I ruined everything for us. For you. I hurt you more than I could even imagine. I’m so sorry.” He sniffled, rubbing at his cheeks. “I still love you. I-I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I do. I don’t think I could ever stop loving you.”

You nodded. “I love you too. I just... I don’t know if I can.”

He let his eyes close. “I ruined everything for us, didn’t I?”

You extended your hand, palm facing up. Hesitantly, Spencer placed his hand in yours, entwining his fingers with yours. “I don’t know yet. Maybe, maybe not.”

He dropped his head, pulling your hand to his lips and pressing a kiss to your knuckles. His eyes fluttered closed once more, his lips lingering on your skin as he huffed out a breath. “I’m so sorry.”

You lifted your hand from his to run your fingers through his hair. “Go home, Spence. Get some sleep. I’ll have JJ come and get me in the morning.”

His fingers tangled into the blanket on your bed for a moment before he nodded, releasing his grip and rising to his feet. “Are you sure?”

You nodded, giving him a small smile. “Yeah. I... I need some time to process everything.”

You watched as he mentally argued with himself before he slouched, defeated. He made his way to the door of your room, stopping in the doorway and turning to you. “Just know I’m a phone call away if you need me.”

You nodded. “I know, thank you. Goodnight, Spencer.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

[analviel]

Tim Drake who's a tech wiz is... okay. I mean, doing anything with lives on the line does eventually result in great improvement, and he's nineteen now, ya know (I think). Yeah....

(Ssssh, I'm working my way through it, coming to terms with it.)

He had shown talent, it was pretty much hinted on and slowly developed and the seeming abrupt jumps in some places is just because of our difference between the decades in what we deem 'tech savvy'. And the fighting skills, training with The Lama, Lady Shiva, Batman, Cass, and the likes, going against various enemies, yeah, it's all cool. He's been trained by the best. I still maintain that his older brothers and sister should still absolutely always win in a fight against him unless he manages to keep extreme 'another city entirely' distance between them and forms a clever trap which would require anticipating to be attacked by them before hand, and yeah. He's supposed to be one of the best bo staff fighter in-universe and with the effort his teachers trained him with it would be insulting to reduce him to a wimp.

His detective skills is one of the things that really sold him, and he'd started way before Bruce had, and with a family of detectives at his back too, constantly polishing him, it's cool, though detective skills is different from omniscience so be careful with that.....

Skill wise, he's growing up, he's had years of constantly pushing himself past his limits, with great motivation to save lives and KEEP his friends LIVING, I don't got much complaint in how they portray him. SKILLWISE, that is.

Sure, he's a detective, and a fighter, and tech savvy, and an heir, and with a propensity to go chameleon with various aliases, as well as being stealthy, and he'd gone through trauma that obviously changed him-

And the whole him and pretending to be an unfeeling computer thing can easily be attributed to having taken too much repeated emotional and mental damage within such a short span of time, with Tim possibly numbing himself from them because Bruce is a horrible role model-

What I'm getting at is, Tim is a hero. He's the kid that stepped up when no one else seemed to want to. He's an inspiration.

And you broke him.

But don't take it the wrong way, I don't MEAN it in a bad way, this can be a good opportunity. Tim Drake is clearly a people person. He can't heal by himself because he's an anxiety driven person (Not insecurity, that's different) and being by himself just lets his thoughts spiral.

A broken hero is only good when he triumphs over his pain.

Bruce Wayne broke that night outside that theatre and he used that as motivation for justice.

How will Tim use this pain, you know.

Show us how he, as your average kid who'd experienced such setbacks, is going to pick himself up. By surrounding himself with friends. Reconnecting with old ones. Looking into himself while not letting himself be trapped in there.

I can buy that he's really, really, really good at what he does, he wouldn't keep doing it if he wasn't, but he's no psychopath/sociopath and doesn't have God-tier control over his mind. He doesn't even have Bruce-tier control over his body (not yet, maybe never).

Like, at this stage in his life, I don't even care how much you glorify his skills, how much you exaggerate it, whatever. His training arc and 'settling into vigilantehood' is long since over, I'm no longer here for his improvements in his fighting prowess.

We're still here, waiting patiently, for Tim Drake.

His personality. Focus more on his emotional and mental state.

Like, show us how the boy we fell in love with can grow into a man we can still continue adoring. If that makes sense.

We have to love him, right? So pick and choose the parts we love about Tim Drake (hint: dorkiness, intuitive, perseverance, initiative, etc. etc. As well as his flaws, the ones that he'd actually have no way of getting over, like Dick's anger, Bruce and Jason's absoluteness, Barbara's reservation, maybe, etc. Not the ones that are only there for a short while for him to learn to get over with, pick something that's actually integral to his character) and from there, from that 'Tim Drake' core foundation that we have, add some traits that are relevant to his current circumstances, and the subsequent state of mind that said circumstances will undeniably result.

Please let us see Tim Drake recover. Heal. Dig himself out of this. To keep insisting and stubbornly working towards someone better than Bruce, to continue to aspire to Dick. Not being like Bruce. Not being Batman is at least one consistent theme about him, being the kid who'd seen his hero at one of his worst.

Like, a lot of people relate to this kid, who, frankly, projects on him, and that's for a reason. Because he's the fantasy of wanting to help and actually doing it.

Not letting reasons like 'being a literal kid' and 'having no fighting experience' dissuade him from doing something good.

Maybe now let us have the fantasy of recovering from childhood traumas because there's a lot of those going around here, 'specially these days.

[aion-rsa]

Midnight Mass Ending Explained

https://ift.tt/39I2zkp

This article contains spoilers for Midnight Mass.

Ending a horror story is hard.

Perhaps no one knows that better than Mike Flanagan, the writer-director behind horror hits like Doctor Sleep, The Haunting of Hill House, and The Haunting of Bly Manor. After observing the occasional less-than-enthusiastic reaction to the endings of some of his other projects, Flanagan decided to end his latest, Netflix series Midnight Mass, on his own terms.

“I didn’t want to come up with an ending that I thought would please people,” Flanagan told Den of Geek and other outlets prior to Midnight Mass’s premiere. “I wanted to come up with the ending that would have the most to say down the line.”

So what, exactly, does the ending of Midnight Mass have to say? Let’s explain just what goes down in the conclusion of Midnight Mass and assess what it all means. 

What’s Up with Mildred Gunning and John Pruitt?

Monsignor John Pruitt a.k.a. Father Paul (Hamish Linklater) was, by all indications, a good Christian man. 

“The thing we kept coming back to is that authentically, through-and-through evil people are very rare. We’re all way more complicated. The humanity of Father Paul was something that was baked in relatively early,” Flanagan says.

Though Pruitt is not a bad man, per se, he is a deeply flawed one. A long time ago, before the “war” (probably World War II or The Korean War), Pruitt hooked up with the married Mildred Gunning and fathered their daughter Sarah Gunning out of wedlock. That is obviously a big no-no for a priest and Pruitt lived with the guilt of denying his daughter for decades. 

Pruitt finally got a chance to alleviate that guilt when he came across a curious creature in Damascus. In this fictional universe where the concept of a vampire is clearly not well known, John Pruitt made the understandable mistake of confusing a monstrous vampire for an equally monstrous angel. After all, the angels of the bible are so visually terrifying that they make a habit of telling those they visit “be not afraid.” 

Pruitt thought this angel had granted him the gift of eternal life, just like the Bible promises. He then decides to share that gift with his congregation. The priest’s major sin here though is pride. He didn’t share the angel’s gift with his congregation out of pure benevolence. He did it because he wanted many more years of life in his prime with Mildred and Sarah at his side. Catholicism means everything to Pruitt. And yet, he would cast it all aside for another chance to have the family he wanted. 

“If you showed up and asked me, I would have taken this collar off and gone with you. Gone with you anywhere in the world,” Pruitt tells Mildred after she’s been vampirified. 

That’s a touching sentiment from the artist formerly known as Father Paul but it’s unfortunately a destructive one.

“When it became clear that Paul could do bad things with pure motives, the show came into clearer focus. There’s only one character in the whole show who I think is evil and it’s not Father Paul,” Flanagan says.

Only one character who is evil? Who could Flanagan be referr….ohhh.

What Were the Vampires’ Plans?

Flanagan actually never confirms which character he sees as evil, but Bev Keane (Samantha Sloyan) seems to be the best fit…unless we count the angel, and he just seems to be a hungry, growing boy.

Bev is, let’s say, a real piece of work. As beautifully depicted by Sloyan, Bev Keane is the officious church lady who can’t keep her nose out of other people’s business. After Mildred talks some sense into John Pruitt, he understands that he and his congregation “are the wolves” and refuses to participate further. That leaves a power vacuum at the top, which Bev is more than happy to step into. 

Read more

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Now that Bev has a veritable army of superpowered vampires what does she intend to do with them? The same thing that all Bevs want to do: make more Bevs. Bev represents the worst of colonial Christianity and its historical penchant for converting all to its kingdom of heaven…through any means necessary.

When Erin Greene (Kate Siegel) finds out that Bev and friends have merely disabled the boats and not destroyed them, she realizes that their ultimate plan is to eventually take their vampire party to the mainland and create a whole planet of enlightened Christians who just happy to have an insatiable taste for blood and a severe UV-ray allergy. 

What Happens to Crockett Island?

Thankfully, Bev’s ultimate goal never comes to pass thanks to the careful plotting of the handful of human beings left in Crockett Island. Erin Greene, Sarah Gunning (Annabeth Gish), Sheriff Hassan (Rahul Kohli), and Annie Flynn (Kirstin Lehman) get to work on finishing the destruction that Bev started.

Ironically, it’s part of Bev’s plan that eventually dooms her and her kind. When one of Bev’s lackeys proposes putting out a fire that the human crew started because the whole island could burn to nothing like in ‘84, Bev’s eyes light up.

“I mean…the church didn’t burn in ‘84,” she says.

Surely this is Revelation. And Revelation means a hale mixed with fire and blood. There will be a flood of fire that ends the world and St. Patrick’s church will be the arc. That’s a great plan and all…as long as something doesn’t happen to the arc.

Welp. Sarah Gunning burns down St. Patrick’s and Sheriff Hassan and Erin Greene (with an assist from Hassan’s son) burn down the rec center. As if burning a church designated as an arc wasn’t symbolically compelling enough, recall that the rec center next to it is equally as symbolic of Bev’s greed. It was Bev who convinced Crockett Island to take the oil company’s money for ruining their island rather than pursuing litigation. And all they got out of that settlement money was that stupid rec center.

With the church and the rec center gone, there are no man-made structures for the vampires to hide from the sun in the coming morning. And that’s how an entire island of 120-ish vampires perishes simultaneously when the sun rises. 

Why Do Leeza and Warren Survive? 

All of Crockett Island perishes save for two actually. Warren Flynn (Igby Rigney) and Leeza Scarborough (Annarah Cymone) are spared thanks to some quick thinking. Putting the only two remaining non-vampirized children in harm’s way is not an option for Erin, Sarah, Hassan, and Annie. Thankfully, Warren knows of one secret canoe to reach the “Uppards” that Bev’s crew wouldn’t know about. 

The canoe doesn’t take Warren and Leeza to the mainland but it does get them away from the carnage to come. The last shot of the series is Warren and Leeza floating peacefully and Leeza announcing that she can no longer feel her legs. This means that the last bit of “angel” blood has likely left her system and with it Pruitt’s vampire legacy is over. 

Saving Warren and Leeza has practical, emotional implications for Midnight Mass’s characters but it also has some symbolic ones as well. The concept of witnessing and witnesses themselves are very important in the Bible. As a second-hand text (though purportedly with every word inspired by God) there would be no gospel without witnesses. Good news is only half the battle. Someone to witness and report on the good news is the other half. Now Warren and Leeza can report on the ultimate good news that the world is saved.

The fact that the kids survive while the adults succumb to their own adult nonsense has some major implications for Midnight Mass’s creator 

“That last moment of the next generation looking out at the ashes of what the grown ups made – that’s what my kids are gonna get no matter what,” Flanagan says. “That’s what all of our kids are gonna get. I wish it wasn’t as on fire as it it. But it really is. We’re never going to be able to explain adequately to our children what happened to the planet they inherited.”

What Happens to the Angel?

With all of Crockett Island burned to the ground, the world’s vampire nightmare is over, right? Well that depends on how well you think an angel can fly with torn wings. No, that’s not an aphorism or a poem, it’s the real question facing the end of Midnight Mass.

As if saving Warren and Leeza and upending Bev Keane’s plans weren’t enough, Erin leaves one last little gift for humanity before she dies. While the angel attacks her and drinks her sweet, sweet blood, Erin begins systematically, yet carefully cutting holes in its leathery wings. At first the angel is kind of annoyed but his hunger supersedes any level of discomfort or pain he’s feeling. 

Later on, while Warren and Leeza watch their home burn they see the angel flying away but in a halted, loopy pattern. The kids aren’t sure if the beast will have time to find shelter before the sun rises. According to Flanagan, if Midnight Mass is a parable (and he assures us it is) then the ultimate lesson of all this isn’t too hard to glean. 

“The angel doesn’t represent vampirism or horror but corruption in any belief system,” he says. “It represents fundamentalism and fanaticism. That’s never gonna go away. You might chase it away from your community for a minute. You might send it off to the sunrise and hope that that corrupting ideology will disappear. But it won’t. And the show could never show the angel die for that reason.”

With that in mind, the angel’s flawed flight pattern isn’t so much Inception’s spinning top but rather a promise that evil will find a way. And then we puny human beings will just have to find a way to stop it all over again. If that’s not Biblical then we don’t know what is.

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All seven episodes of Midnight Mass are available to stream on Netflix now.

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