#she's a truly awful human being like I have a list of all the horrible things she has done and said

[daintydoilypon]

I went on a lowkey rant about that girl who cheated on her husband and I would like to share my favorite diss-

"She has an inferiority complex as big as her forehead."

Thank you.

[flutteringphalanges]

The Lion Sleeps Tonight

Adam Warlock x Star Lord!Sister Reader

Prompt: All babies get sick. You knew that. And yet, when yours caught a cold, it was the worst feeling in the world. If it wasn’t for Adam, you’d really be a mess. Just another bump in the road of parenthood--but also another sign of how great of a father he truly was. 

Word Count: 1,613

A/N: Hello, hello! Another one shot installment to my Adam Warlock x Star Lord!Sister Reader baby series! Here is the LINK to the master-list of all of the one shots! Requests are open! To those who have sent some in, I promise I will get to them! I also plan to do more with Aydith being different ages besides a baby so please send some suggestions in if you’d like! Thank you guys so much for your support! Here we go! -Jen

                                   The Lion Sleeps Tonight

It was just a cold. A simple runny nose accompanied by the occasional cough and low grade fever. Something you had personal experience with in your (age) years of life. It was nothing. A mere inconvenience. But now, sickness played a different role since you became a parent--or, rather when your child fell ill. The feeling of helplessness brought on by not being able to take it away at once and give them comfort. It was just a cold, but it was your baby’s. That was one of the many awful feelings you felt. 

You watched with exhaustion as Adam paced around the room, lightly bouncing Aydith in his arms. She had been crying for what felt like an eternity now. It didn’t help that the damn cold hit right around when she had begun to really teeth. You were at a loss of what to do. Mantis had offered to put her asleep, but you didn’t want her to use any powers on your daughter. Not when she was so little. Not when you didn’t know how it could impact her. If you hadn’t brought her to Earth to visit your grandfather last weekend, this wouldn’t have happened. How were you supposed to know the bug was going around? 

“This is all my fault.” You exhaled, shaking your head. Gods, you just wanted to cry with her. “I exposed our baby and now she’s infected. I’m a horrible mother.”

Adam made his way over to you, Aydith’s cries only amplifying. At this point, you were quite sure that all of Knowhere had been awakened by them. How such a little thing could be so loud was a question you didn’t have an answer to. Just like how you didn’t have an answer as to how to ease your daughter’s distress. 

“This is no fault of yours, Y/N. And it is impossible for you to even be remotely considered a below average parent. Please don’t ever think like that.” He tried to assure you, his tone sympathetic. “I’ve done a great deal of reading and it is quite common for human infants to contract it. Our child is half Sovereign, I am more than certain that being so lessens the chances of this developing into anything serious.” 

He had done research. A lot of it. As soon as Aydith let out her first cough, Adam had gone into protective parent mode and scoured through the entirety of what felt like every medical file in the galactic internet in search of answers. Meanwhile, you had reluctantly allowed Nebula to run some scans knowing full well that your baby was more than safe. That the Luphomoid would never do something that would put her in harm’s way. Still you worried, even after your partner was relatively satisfied with what he found. 

“She sounds so miserable, and it’s like nothing I do makes any difference.” You looked over at Adam as he took a seat beside you. “I hate this. I hate this more than any of those assholes we’ve ever had to fight--and I’m not trying to be dramatic, but this is my baby and she is upset and nothing I try helps! I…” You inhaled deeply, trying to reel yourself back in. “When I first met you, I didn’t think it was possible to fall so deeply in love again--and even though this is a different kind of love, I just feel like I’m failing.” 

Adam’s cheek rested against the baby’s as he maneuvered her so he had a free arm to put around you. “Your feelings are more than valid, my love. I wish I could ease your stress equally as much as I wish for our daughter’s recovery.” He leaned over and pressed a kiss to your temple. “You need your rest. I can tell you are very tired. Let me take care of Aydith.” 

You shook your head, fighting back a yawn. That would’ve only proved his point. “I’m fine.” You told him firmly. “I don’t need sleep. Not when she is like this.” 

“But you do, especially as you’ve had the same exposure as her.” Adam countered, gazing straight into your eyes. “You becoming sick like her won’t do either of you any benefits, my love, so please, I implore you to sleep. Please don’t make me call upon Mantis to assist you.” He really had an odd way of saying things sometimes. “Deal?”

Adam was right. You really needed to rest. All of your energy had been spent long ago worrying and taking care of your daughter. As much as you hated to admit it, you weren’t any use to her if you were out of commission yourself. Frowning softly, you gave in and nodded. 

“Okay.” You responded reluctantly, but finally agreed. “But if she seems like she is getting worse, you’ll get me up. And you won’t let me sleep too long.” 

“I suppose that is reasonable enough.” He accepted as Aydith whined, wriggling in his grasp. Adam shifted her to his other shoulder and gently patted her back. “I shall take her in another room so it is quieter for you. We’ll be fine, won’t we, my tiny comet?” 

Your mouth curved into a small smile, the first you’ve had in awhile. He was so good with her. So amazing that it made you love him that much more. You couldn’t ask for a better father for your child. And Gods did he adore her too. Talk about you hitting the jackpot. 

You leaned in, kissing Aydith’s flushed cheek. “Only a nap, nothing too long.” You reminded Adam, taking a moment to kiss him. “And if she gets worse…” 

“You have my word,Y/N. But I assure you, all will be well. Aydith is strong like her mother.” He hummed, glancing over at his daughter. “Now we will step out so you can sleep. I love you dearly and, though she cannot talk yet, I know Aydith shares my feelings too.” 

“I love you both too.” And you wished there was a more powerful word to convey that. 

Lying on your bed, you didn’t expect for you to fall asleep as quickly as you did. You honestly thought your body would fight your mind over remaining conscious. But you were gone. Floating in a dreamless state. A dark void enveloping you in a tight embrace. If it wasn’t for the distant sound of rhythm, perhaps you would’ve stayed there.

Your eyes opened, mind still fuzzy from sleep as you sat up. The music you heard was definitely there, not something you had dreamed up. And something about the tune felt so familiar. Adam and Aydith were nowhere to be seen--but what was more surprising, you couldn’t hear the softest of whimpers. Slightly worried, you forced your body up and made your way over to the doorway that led to the small space that served as your living room. The music grew louder as you quietly peeked in. 

The Lion Sleeps Tonight by The Tokens. That’s why you recognized it. You didn’t remember much from your childhood on Earth, but you had the vaguest of memories of your mother playing that along with a few other songs when she was trying to coax you and Peter into falling asleep during a long car ride. You noticed the clunky radio Phyla had gifted to you--or rather, Aydith, as a present. The thing was pretty old and banged up, but that kinda gave it character. You looked away from it, your attention suddenly drawn to the figure standing right in the center of the room. 

What Adam was doing, you couldn’t exactly call it dancing. It was more so like a bobbing, rocking sort of motion that kinda gave off the impression of someone having literal ants in their pants. Sometimes he’d sway back and forth before immediately stopping in his tracks to do knee bends. It was the strangest and yet, oddly cute thing you’d ever seen him do. And when you listened closely, he was even singing under his breath. Until that moment, it hadn’t even clicked in your mind that he was still holding Aydith. Nor that she was finally asleep. 

“Hey.” You whispered, trying your best not to startle him. “Whatcha doing?” 

Adam’s head snapped in your direction. “Oh! I’m sorry, did I wake you?” You shook your head and he sighed in relief. “Good. I have successfully aided our child.” “I can see that.” You smiled, making your way over to him. “You give Peter a run for his money with those moves.” 

Adam beamed. “I call it The Dad Disco--I’m not quite sure what disco looks like, but I really liked the sound of it.” He looked down at the baby and you could’ve sworn his eyes sparkled. “I must admit, I was growing concerned but then when she finally fell asleep…well, I feel very accomplished now. I’m glad she’s out.”

“Me too.” You replied, admiring your daughter in his arms. “You’re an amazing dad, you know that?” 

“I certainly couldn’t do it without you. We make quite the team, don’t we?” Adam smiled at you.

“Yeah. I’d say we’re pretty great together.” You reached out and lightly touched her small hand. “She makes it all worth it, huh?” 

“Every millisecond.” He fell silent, eyes fixed on her before focusing on you. “If she stays asleep when I put her down in the crib, would you care to have a dance with me? I promise that we don’t have to do The Dad Disco. That’s more reserved for Aydith.” 

You gave him a grin. “I think I would like that very much.”

[lenreli]

Day 12 - "Don't take me for a fool" [Human AU]

[AO3] Time for more getaway driver Hob & criminal Dream!

-

Morpheus enters the garage of the quite ordinary home, looking critically around as he follows the sound of metal-on-metal. Smirking, he finds what he was looking for under a car, legs sticking out. “Hob Gadling,” he intones, relishing as he sees Hob’s leg twitch, the sound of metal stopping as the getaway driver slides out from underneath the car, white singlet dirty with oil as Hob looks up at him, eventually sighing. 

“Morpheus of the Endless,” Hob replies as he gets a towel to wipe his dirty hands, and Morpheus tries to not let the shock show on his face, well-thought out plan disappearing in a puff of smoke. “Congratulations, you know how information gathering works.” Hob sighs and rests on the side of the dark green car he was working on. “Thought I should look into you since the last time,” Hob says with a shrug, and Morpheus scowls, not enjoying the constant feeling of being wrong-footed that Hob gives him. 

Well, maybe he does like it a bit, not that he’d say it. “I,” he starts, and then shuts his mouth as he realises that he forgot what he was planning to say, mind still reeling at hearing his name out of Hob’s mouth. 

“Are you here to kill me, Morpheus?” Hob asks with a tilt of his head, hands going into the pants of greasy blue jeans, and Morpheus can only shake his head. “So, why are you here, then?” 

Morpheus gapes, managing to get his thoughts together as Hob stares at him. “I ― do you not remember?” He asks, baffled and offended. 

“Sure I do. But why?” Hob asks, raising an eyebrow. 

Gritting his teeth, Morpheus salvages some pride to ― give, “because I want more of,” he breathes out.

Hob looks up at the ceiling, then walks towards him with an intensity that makes him step back ― until he hits a car as Hob grabs onto the lapels of his coat. “More of what? A relationship? My skills for only you to use? You’re not the first to do this, you know, so don’t take me for a fool, Endless,” Hob threatens, and Morpheus’s heart beats wildly as Hob lets go, nose scrunching. “Though, if you wanted more of a business thing, you’d kidnap me. Also not the first time.” 

“No,” he chokes out, mind swirling with all that Hob’s given him, “no ― just, a relationship. No strings attached.” 

He’s given a skeptical look as Hob crosses his arms, “and people have used relationships to also try and get information for who I’ve done jobs for, not to mention the last woman I was with I had to kill because she was an assassin with me as her mark,” Hob says, scowling at him. 

“You could just say no,” he says, and Hob raises an eyebrow, “truly. I do not care for ― whoever you do jobs for, I just,” Morpheus takes a deep breath, steeling himself, “I want you.” 

This time, Hob is the one who opens and shuts his mouth, looking even more confused. “I’m so used to people in our line of work just,” Hob gestures, as if Hob’s lists of what’s happened to him is in an itemised list in the garage. “You’re insane.” 

“So people keep saying,” Morpheus replies, sighing deeply as he steps forward, taking Hob’s grease-stained hands, “I noticed you didn’t say no.” 

Hob stares down at their hands, looking even more perplexed, “I don’t think I’m ready for a relationship right now. Sex, fine, but emotionally?” At this, Morpheus laughs, the sound horrible and braying as it echoes throughout the garage. “What?” 

“You forced me to reveal emotions I’d rather die to even speak, but you’re not the one ready for emotions,” he says, biting his lip to stop his horrible laughter. “I would be fine with that.”

“You are insane,” Hob says, something like awe in his voice ― though, Morpheus can’t think further on it as Hob moves forward, hands cupping his face as they kiss, nails trailing down his neck as their bodies press together, Hob’s body scorching against his. 

“Our jobs have nothing to do with this,” Morpheus breathes, cupping Hob’s clothed cock in one hand as Hob moans, the other’s stained hands quickly going to tear Morpheus’s pants open. 

“That’s the most sane thing you’ve said since you came here,” Hob mutters against his lips, and Morpheus whines the coolness of the car behind him contrasts with Hob’s heat, at the feel of rough hands stroking his cock. “Fuck it,” Morpheus hears as Hob bites down his neck, Hob’s other hand trailing up his spine under his shirt, “we’ll see how this goes, I guess.”

[mariacallous]

Eleven years ago, Ed Miliband made a party conference speech that must have seemed a great idea at the time. It was a denunciation of predatory capitalism that in retrospect seems very prescient, and went down well enough in the hall. It was only afterwards, when journalists started challenging him to name names, that things hit the buffers. Come on, then; if they’re so awful, who are they, these bastards ruining life for everyone? The minute his team hesitated, presumably afraid of being sued, the pack pounced. Is Rupert Murdoch a predatory capitalist? What about the guy who runs BHS? Or Sainsbury’s, or Next? A somewhat bruised Miliband ended up insisting the point was not to make “moral judgments about individuals”. It’s easy to generalise about your enemies but hard, it turns out, to be specific.

Liz Truss has just fallen into a similar trap. The Conservative party audience clapped her attack on the “anti-growth coalition” she blamed for Tory failures to deliver over the last 12 years, because it was essentially a list of people they dislike: Scottish nationalists, Brexit deniers, north London liberals who say snide things about them on the BBC. It was only on contact with the real world that things began to fall apart.

In her speech, Truss championed Britain’s right to stuff itself on junk food. So is Jamie Oliver, patron saint of healthy eating, now an Enemy of Growth? Downing Street couldn’t rule out the possibility. Well, there’s a game any interviewer can play. Is national treasure David Attenborough, who has argued against prizing growth at all costs, on the axis of evil? What about Tory donors shorting the pound, or the Tory MP who famously vowed to lie down under a bulldozer to stop the expansion of Heathrow? (Blond guy, rumpled hair, don’t hear so much from him lately.) And then there’s the man who once argued that, instead of bankrupting the environment in an endless rush for growth, we must “see Nature’s capital and her processes as the very basis of a new form of economics”. That would be King Charles, currently banned from representing Britain at Cop27.

What I do give Truss credit for is drawing her dividing lines in crayon, not blood. This stuff is so patently silly that it lacks the malevolent power of previous Conservative attempts to create bogeymen – “citizens of nowhere”, say, or “enemies of the people” – which seemed to summon something truly horrible from the depths. Truss doesn’t instantly fall back on culture wars when in trouble, or at least not yet. She’ll hit you in the pocket, but not so much below the belt, at least not yet. Her oddly dispassionate tone – during her speech she never once explained in human terms how growth would actually change your life or mine – makes for poor demagoguery, a small but real mercy after the last few years. This all feels less like a sinister new government front opening up and more like something an opposition would say in its early, hit and miss stages; rather like the time William Hague’s team tried and failed to coin “pebbledash people” as a clunky catchphrase for the voters they wanted to attract.

There are sensible ideas buried somewhere beneath the chaos of the last fortnight, too, including an early but unsuccessful attempt to change the record on immigration. Truss’s growth plan would, we were told, create more avenues for legal immigration, a belated recognition that flourishing economies are open ones, which was promptly torpedoed this week by the home secretary, Suella Braverman, declaring that, personally, she’d like to cut immigration to the “tens of thousands”. But at least somewhere round the cabinet table is a rational head acknowledging that the post-Brexit pulling up of drawbridges has left crops rotting in the fields and exacerbated dire staff shortages in health and social care. There have been attempts to reset the relationship with the EU, too, amid tantalising rumours that a deal on the Northern Ireland protocol might be close enough to avoid a self-harming trade war with Europe. Even the growth argument masks a welcome recognition that Britain hasn’t built enough houses, and that they’ll have to go in someone’s back yard.

But successive Tory prime ministers have been pleading with Tory conferences to overcome their inner nimby for years now, and it’s not the fault of anyone on Truss’s ludicrous list that they haven’t. It’s not “Brexit deniers” who will knock an estimated 4% off Britain’s productivity either, but Brexit enthusiasts. She can’t honestly confront what holds a Conservative government back, because all too often it’s Conservatism.

Just as Miliband put his finger on something crucial in predatory capitalism, even if he couldn’t quite find the language to land it, Truss has identified a genuine issue with Britain’s ability to get stuff done. From big infrastructure projects to action on climate, governments of all stripes do constantly put off difficult decisions for the next lot. There might well be something refreshing about a Conservative party using its last months in power – and these do feel like its last months – to grasp some nettles, sparing its successor the job.

But that would require a commanding authority Truss doesn’t possess. Barely a month in, her cabinet already says and does more or less as it pleases. The old joke that no matter who leads the Conservatives, somehow Michael Gove always ends up in charge, rang true as he roamed the conference fringe dictating what look suspiciously like terms for backbench rebels – although interestingly, he’d agree with Truss on housebuilding. Mockery aside, she has clearly identified a problem. It’s just that, like disappointed oppositions down the ages, she isn’t going to be its solution.

[theunquenchablethirst]

Hooked (Jerome X Reader)

Ok, so this is a thing. I was kinda surprised nobody had used this scene yet, because the Gotham fandom seem to collectively agree that Jerome is BIG KINKY and yet the one scene where he canonically has people cuffed up and hung from the ceiling... nobody has touched??? Y'all have been sleeping on that scene! It's fanfic gold! Anyway, enjoy the hedonism. Much love xxx

Warning: SMUT, 18+, GRAPHIC SEXUAL CONTENT, BDSM, bondage, cuffs, dom/sub, vaginal fingering, oral sex, biting, spanking, slapping, pussy slapping, light choking, spitting, belt whipping, praise/degradation, marking, mention of scratching, Jerome is big meanie pants mean man

The new mayor of Gotham is having a meeting with his council members, but things take a turn when the Legion of Horribles show up to kidnap them and reader. When the victims are being unloaded from the truck, Jerome Valeska notices reader, because she isn't exactly on the guest list.

Tag list of lovelies: @gabile18 @valeskaduh @fangirl--writes @persephoneblck

Masterlist

I had been working as a housekeeper for the new mayor. It was a good job, but I wasn't appreciated. I was just there to clean and serve when needed. I don't think he even knew my name. I was just hired help to him. To all of them.

He was hosting a dinner for his council that day. I had been placed in the corner of the room with a bottle of expensive wine where I was to wait until wanted. He gestured for me to come forwards and fill their glasses while they started talking about their displeasure with the rising foul play in the city, like it was anything new for Gotham. The chairwoman wanted to know what he was going to do about it. Very little in my opinion. He was just coasting. In too deep over his head. He had been appointed far too fast and everyone knew it. He wasn't going to last.

He made an attempt to save face and talk about how he too was disturbed by the recent goings on and was doing everything he could. Trash, utter trash. As he rose from his seat, the lights fizzled out. I stopped pouring. Had this been any other city I would have assumed it was a simple power outage, but nothing was that simple in Gotham. The security guard closed us in and went to see what was happening. The air turned icy. No, this was not good. Gunshots and screams came from the hallway and everyone rose from the table terrified. We quickly started walking towards a door hoping to make an escape, but there was something about the windows. They were freezing over.

The doors burst open and I dropped the wine. It smashed into pieces as a blueish man in some kind of robotic suit and a weird looking, but huge gun stepped into the room. Was that Victor Fries? Then through the second set of doors another man in a top hat who I recognised as Jervis Tetch burst in with some other strange looking friends.

Before I could comprehend the situation, we were all being cuffed and taken outside. Our kidnappers pushed and pulled us towards a huge truck, all the while the mayor tried to buy his way free. He was showing just how little he really knew about the underbelly of Gotham. I knew just by looking at them that they were probably Arkham escapees and couldn't be bought like a sane man could. They had their own plans and you can't bargain with crazies.

We got to the truck and they opened the back door. My blood ran cold when I saw that standing there waiting for us was Jerome Valeska. Of all the criminals Gotham had seen he had been the only one that had scared me, truly and thoroughly. He didn't have any kind of reason for what he did. He just enjoyed death and chaos. And after his last escapade he looked like madness personified, his scars circling his face and eyes and giving him a permanent evil smile. Dread consumed me as I realized that he was no doubt the leader of this operation and if that was true, we were already dead.

I felt myself jolted forwards. The mayor had pushed me in front of the rest of the council to get whatever was coming first. If I wasn't cuffed, I would have turned around and broke his nose. I was lifted into the truck, my hands were pulled above my head and fixed to two hooks. I had to stand on my toes to keep standing which made it awkward and difficult as they pushed me to the back of the truck.

Was that Penguin? What was he doing here? He didn't belong here. I had gone to Penguin looking for a job in his club when I was 16. He was impressed with my audition, but when he asked my age, he rejected me.

"This establishment is not a playground for children. It's a nightclub." He had told me. At the time I had been steaming mad, but in hindsight he was probably right. Even if he was rude. So, after that, I found it hard to understand why he was here and working with Valeska. Maybe he had been kidnapped too?

The rest of the council were loaded on and hooked. The mayor was still trying to offer them money and pardons. When he saw it wasn't working, he resorted to empty, unintimidating threats. Jerome was completely unfazed and even a little disappointed in the lack of smiles.

"Nobody knows how to have fun anymore, right?" He said putting his arm around Penguin. So, he was a part of this.

Jerome pointed to a scary looking figure dressed like a scarecrow. Johnathan Crane? Crane released some kind of purple gas in the face of a member of a council. She started laughing and convulsing violently.

"What have you got to lose? Except your sanity?" Jerome joined in the crazy laughter. So, this was his plan. He'd figured out a way to forcefully drive everyone insane. With a gas.

I silently prayed to God in my mind for any kind of help.

After sufficiently terrifying us half to death, they left us in the back of truck. None of us could say anything and after a few minutes the truck started moving.

"Is she ok?" I asked looking towards the victim of the insanity gas.

"Who cares?! We have to figure out what they want and get out of here." Replied the mayor.

"Maybe they want publicity for whatever that gas is. Offer them some TV time." Guessed the chairwoman.

"Don't you get it?! This isn't a situation you can buy your way out of!" I snapped, frustrated with their idiocy.

"These aren't normal criminals. They don't want your money. They want chaos and madness." They stood there silently stunned. They had never heard me speak with such confidence, but in that moment, they knew I was right.

After what felt like hours the truck finally stopped.

"What's going on?" The mayor whispered.

Everything was quiet. We listened for any noise or sign of life. All we could hear was our own breath.

Then suddenly the doors flung open once again and in hopped Valeska, Tetch and Crane.

"We're here!" Jerome grinned.

The other two started to pull the council one by one off the hooks and walk them out of the truck, closely watched by Jerome. Until they got to me.

"Wait..." He stuck an arm out to stop Tetch from unhooking me.

"Who's she? She wasn't on the party list." He took a few steps closer to me.

"This poor young girl is an unlucky maid. Wrong place, wrong time. Very bad day." Jervis explained looking at me.

"Would you like me to... dispose of her?" Asked Crane, stalking close to me and lifting needle covered fingers to my throat.

"Not so fast, Mr Potato Head." Jerome said pulling him away from me.

He came so close that we were only inches apart. He looked down at me as if he was thinking for a few seconds then smirked and turned around to the others.

"Guys, go and see that our guests are comfortable, will ya? Get everything ready." He ushered them out of the truck. Fear travelled up and down my body. This had all been a bad situation, but being alone with Valeska scared the hell out of me.

"You're lucky I have a soft spot for pretty little girls." He closed the truck doors and turned to look at me.

"Freddy Krueger there... not so much." He relaxed, leaning back against the doors with his hands in his pockets. "You got a name?"

I stayed silent, more out of fear than defiance. He sucked his teeth and stood up straight.

"I get it. You're scared. Who wouldn't be, right?" He started slowly walking closer. "But things will go a lot smoother if you just play nice."

I still couldn't find any words.

"Aw, come on, doll! I'm getting awful lonely over here." He brought his hands up out of his pockets and leaned against a wall of the truck.

He was quiet for a few seconds and I noticed that his eyes were making their way up my legs. Being held up by my wrists on my tip toes had pulled my uniform skirt up and almost all of my thighs were exposed. I blurted out my name in an attempt to distract him from my bare legs. He smiled.

"What a pretty name. Now, was that so hard?" He pushed himself off the wall and came a little closer.

"So, you're the mayor's dust bunny, huh? I gotta say, doll, I can see why he keeps you around." He chuckled, eyeing me.

My whole body flushed and my face turned hot and red.

“But, uh, the thing about mayors in this town, they don’t last very long.”

"Please let me go." I whimpered.

"Oh, but we're having such a good time! Plus, if I did that, you'd scamper off to the GCPD and I can't have good ol' Gordon crashing the party early."

I scoffed at his suggestion. Not likely. I had a distinct distaste for the GCPD. They hadn't helped me when I needed them. I would never need them again.

"What's the matter? He book ya before or something?" Jerome smiled with intrigue.

"My parents... they... did things to us. When I ended up in the hospital one too many times..." Tears stung my eyes as I remembered. "They left me there and disappeared with my little brother. No one ever managed to track them down."

I didn’t fully understand why I was opening up to Jerome, but for a second, I saw a spark of humanity in his eyes. Like he understood my pain. I'd heard his first kill had been his mother, so maybe he did?

"I'd give anything to see him again." I sniffed and a tear rolled down my cheek.

"Yeah, I had shitty parents too." He sighed. "I killed them both."

I had thought about what I would do if I ever saw my parents again. What I would say, what I would ask. I could never think of the right words. But the thought of killing them, well that made me smile.

"What was it like?" I asked.

Jerome grinned from ear to ear and stepped closer so that we were toe to toe.

“Have you ever stood at the edge of a really tall building? You know that little voice in the back of your head that says ‘Jump! You can fly!’ even though every other part of you is screaming ‘No you can’t! You’re gonna kill us!’”

I nodded shakily.

“It’s like finally giving in to that voice. Like jumping off Gotham Bridge and finding out you can fly. And realising you never have to walk again.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and my heart felt like it was going a million beats per minute. His eyes were locked on mine and it felt like he was looking straight into my soul.

“You wanna fly, doll?” He brought his hand up to cup my jaw and ran his thumb along my bottom lip.

It wasn’t humanity I saw in Jerome Valeskas eyes. It was freedom. A freedom that I had wanted for as long as I could remember. And I could have it right now. He was offering it to me. The only thing standing in my way was myself.

“Yes.” I breathed. “Yes, I do.”

The next thing I knew, his lips were crashing into mine and he had hooked his hands under my thighs and was holding them around his waist. His kiss was desperate and hungry, like he had been starved for days and his grip on the bare flesh of my thighs was rough enough to leave bruises. I locked my ankles together behind him to steady myself from swaying underneath the cuffs. When I did, he drove his crotch forwards, grinding into my centre, a quiet moan escaping me as I felt him.

He slowly trailed a hand from my thigh, up my back and to the nape of my neck, before balling my hair in his fist. I gasped as I felt the sudden, sharp tug of him pulling my head back.

His eyes wandered down to settle on my exposed throat, before yanking my head to the side and nestling in the crook of my neck. He must’ve left a hundred open mouth kisses, but as he started to suck, I felt his teeth sink into my skin. I pulled back with a hiss at the sting, but he wouldn’t let go. He just kept on leaving harsh, red bitemarks and pulling my hair, all the time grinding harder into me.

He licked over the bruises he’d left and gently kissed them, before trailing his tongue up my neck to nip at my ear. He smiled darkly and pulled back away from me, dropping my legs back to the floor. He stalked around me, eyeing me up and down like a predator. I felt him behind me, his hands softly holding onto my waist, pulling me close to his chest.

“You know what’s great about this?” He cooed. “You’re already pre-cuffed.”

I flushed and my core swelled hot, his breath so close to me made my skin tingle all over. He pulled at the top of my skirt and dragged it down my hips, letting it fall down around my feet. He caressed my thighs and then stepped back, tugging at my underwear, playfully letting the elastic snap back to me.

“Y’know...” He said, before the familiar sound of a belt unbuckling. “Marquis de Sade said ‘sex without pain is like food without taste’...”

My eyes widened at his words and my heartbeat quickened.

“So, let’s make this... delicious.”

A million thoughts raced through my mind, but before I could process any, I felt the sharp snap of leather against my ass. I jolted forwards and let out a high pitch yelp.

Even though I couldn’t see him, I could tell he was smirking. I could hear it in his voice. I bit my lip in an attempt to brace myself and he landed the belt across me again.

“Please, Jerome...” I whimpered at the sting, closing my eyes.

He brought it down again, making me arch my back in a gasp. A couple of tears rolled down my cheeks and I realised there was little point in resisting the torment. So, I gritted my teeth and prepared for another lick of the belt.

He whipped me once more, harder this time and a small scream escaped me.

“Please!” I begged.

I heard him chuckle with dark delight. The bastard was enjoying this. Of course he was. What else had I expected from someone like him? I tightened all my muscles for the next sting...

But it didn’t come. Instead, I felt him pulling my underwear down. Relief washed over me when I heard the belt drop to the floor and I realised Jerome was finished and was now crouched, ready to inspect his work. He ran his fingers over my burning flesh, taking in the bright red lashes he had left on me.

“What a pretty picture?” He said, landing a spank. “I wish you could see too doll, but having you cuffed is half the fun.”

His voice was dripping with venom and arousal and I could practically feel his grin in the air. He traced the marks with his fingers a little longer, before grabbing my flesh in fistfuls and sinking his teeth in. I gasped loudly at the hard bite. I wasn’t sure how many more of Jerome's surprises I could take. He laughed and ran his tongue over the new bruise.

“Yep. Definitely a pretty picture.” He smiled, giving me another spank. “I like those little noises you make, doll. Why don’t you make some more for me?”

He snaked his hand up my inner thigh and began stroking along my slit, relighting the fire in my stomach. I moaned, biting hard on my lip and tried to bring my thighs together, wanting friction.

“Naughty.” He said, landing a swift slap on my entrance causing me to let out a little yelp. “I need you to keep those legs open for me.”

It wasn’t as bad as the belt. In fact, it felt quite good. The heat inside me swelled as Jerome returned to running his fingers back and forth in my slickness. I hummed softly in my throat, fighting the urge to close my thighs again, my knees starting to shudder underneath me.

“Look how wet you are and I’m barely touching you.” Jerome chuckled darkly. “I wonder what happens if I do this?”

Jerome plunged two fingers deep inside me and slowly started pumping them. I let the warmth roll through me, moaning blissfully. He gently started to pick up speed, making it nearly impossible for me to keep my thighs apart. The faster he got, the deeper he dove, making me tighten around his talented fingers and struggle to keep steady on my toes.

My legs were shaking and despite my best efforts I just had to squeeze them together. As soon as I did, Jerome removed his fingers from me, leaving me feeling empty and spanked me hard.

“What did I say about that?” He barked, laying down another spank.

His spanking felt different this time. It felt pleasurable and sent a thrill up my spine.

“Sorry.” I whimpered.

“Sorry for what?” He spanked me again. “For being a needy little whore? Hm?” Another spank.

“Yes!” I gasped. “I’m a needy little whore! I just...”

“What? You just what?”

Jerome landed another slap at my core. It made my muscles clench, but it also aroused me so much more in a way I’d never thought I’d experience.

“What? What do you want, whore?”

“Please...”

“Big words, princess. What...” Spank. “Do you...” Another spank. “Want?”

“I want... I want you...” I forced, breathlessly.

“You want me? What do you want me to do, princess?” Jerome teased, tracing a finger along my burning entrance, just barely touching me.

“Please... Make me feel good, Jerome... Make me cum.”

“Are you gonna be a good girl?”

“Yes...”

“Are you gonna do as I say?”

“Yes, I will.”

“Exactly as I say?”

“Yes! Yes! Yes! Just please...Jerome.”

I couldn’t take it any longer. I felt so pathetic and needy. I needed him to touch me.

“So desperate.” He giggled sadistically. I supposed he loved seeing me beg.

Then, finally, he spread me open and dove his tongue deep into my wanting warmth. I closed my eyes and bit down hard on my lip as he swirled his tongue around inside me. I wanted to grab his hair and feel it in my fingers, but all I could do was squeeze my fists together in empty frustration.

Jerome grabbed a hand full of my ass, gripping it tightly, digging his nails in and rose his other hand to my pelvis front, pulling me down further onto his tongue. I squealed, a delightful mixture of pleasure and also pain from the tugging on my aching forearms. He ran his front hand down to play with my swollen clit, circling his fingers around beautifully.

He grinded his face deeply into me, sliding his tongue up, down, around and around inside me. He pressed his fingers down harder on my clit, forcing a loud moan out of me. I felt the pressure inside me build, coiling and tightening like a burning spring. I squeezed my thighs around his head in a desperate attempt to pull him deeper, his tongue nestling inside finding all of my sweet spots and lighting them on fire.

I could feel myself ready, ready to burst. He was pulling an amazing orgasm out of me and I wanted nothing more than to just let it go. All it took was one more upward jolt of his head, pushing his tongue that last little bit deep enough to push me over. I screamed out in erotic pleasure, letting the feeling flood me like warm water. My back arched and my legs convulsed until I withered, letting myself dangle from my cuffs in a breathless defeat.

Jerome slid his tongue out of me and pulled his face back away.

“You sing so pretty, dollface. Like a little birdie.” He said, squeezing the flesh off my ass.

He gave me one more light bite and a spank, before he rose back up to stand, snaking his hands along my sides all the way. He let his hands wander up to cup my breasts, massaging them softly. He leaned in close and began leaving wet kisses in the crook of my neck. I shuddered, his touch sending a cool tingle down my spine. He let his hands squeeze my breasts slightly harder, then pulled away and crept back around in front of me.

He stood facing me, his eyes locked on mine. They seemed to burn holes right into my flesh, creating a sense of fear in me. I was scared of Jerome Valeska, I truly was. But everything he was doing to me right now... The way he touched me, kissed me. I wondered how he managed it. How he was able to both terrify and arouse me in equal amounts.

Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t register his hand rising until it was firmly wrapped around my throat. He leaned down to kiss me, dominating my mouth with his tongue, making me taste myself. Once again, I felt the familiar warmth build in my core as I sensed we were not quite done here. He finished the kiss with a little nip to my bottom lip.

“Are you scared of me, doll?” He purred.

I swallowed hard, unsure if truth was wise here. Then I felt him increase the pressure around my throat, not wanting to wait for an answer.

“Yes.” I breathed.

“Good.” He said through an evil smirk.

He crashed his lips to mine once again, his free hand picking up my thigh to wrap around him. I locked both my legs around his waist, wanting to feel him close against me. I felt his erection hard, under his clothes, grinding into me and I wanted it. Badly. He pulled away from the kiss, leaving his taste on my tongue and raised his hand from my throat to grab hold of my face. He took his other hand away from my thigh and pulled at his tie. I didn’t drop my legs this time, instead I gripped tighter as he slid his tie from around his neck and scrunched it in his fist.

“Open your mouth.” He ordered.

I did as he said and he smiled, before spitting into my open lips and gagging me with his tie. I’d never had anyone do that before and it shocked me a little, but then again, I’d never had anyone like Jerome Valeska before.

He backed up slightly, just enough for him to reach down and unzip his trousers and pull down his underwear, freeing his erection. I couldn’t help but look down at it. It was bigger than any I’d taken before and I wasn’t sure how prepared I was. He started to slowly stroke himself, lifting up my chin to look at me.

He gently stroked a single finger across my jaw and then, suddenly, landed a harsh slap across my cheek. I yelped at the slap, causing a dangerous smile to form on Jeromes mouth. I should’ve been repulsed by him. He killed people and was aroused by my pain and fear, so why was I so attracted to him?

He angled himself underneath me so he was lined up and ready. He wrapped his hand back around my throat and then pushed forwards into me, causing us both to let out deep moans.

“You like that?”

I nodded and whimpered through the material of the tie. Jerome giggled darkly and with his free hand, gripped onto my waist.

“Brace yourself, princess.” He warned, through a poisonous smile.

He pulled back slowly, until he was almost completely out of me and then, like a bullet, ploughed himself right back in, jolting me backwards with force. He continued his thrusting rough and fast, making me whimper and bite down hard on the tie. I closed my legs tightly around him, pulling him closer and forcing him in deeper.

He let out a low, guttural groan and moved his hand upwards from my waist to slap me again, spitting at my face as he did so. I closed my eyes to endure the onslaught of him pounding inside me like a raging animal. I felt like a toy, dangling there for him to use as he liked, but still the searing pleasure of it all made me moan lustfully.

“Open those peepers, princess.” He commanded. “I want you to see exactly who’s in charge here.”

I opened my eyes and saw him grinning at me like a man possessed.

“You like this? You like me fucking you?” He growled, gripping my throat tighter.

All I could do was whimper and moan in response.

“I cuffed you and hung you up, hurt you, spat on you... even made you cry! And you still let me fuck you?” He laughed through shallow breaths. “You’re pathetic, you know that? A pathetic little whore.”

Jerome threw another slap at me and I felt myself tighten around his considerable length, taking him all deep inside me. He drove up into me like he was trying to break me open with his girth and I welcomed every inch of it.

“You’re so fucking tight.” He moaned.

I clenched my walls around him, the feeling of being filled by him sending flutters through me as he pushed in deeper and laughed.

“I don’t think your pussy ever wants to let me go, doll!” He grinned. “But I already know you like taking my cock like this, cause you’re such a good girl for me... I like that.”

I flushed at his words. I didn’t know why, but it made me feel good to please him and, in that moment, I would have done anything for him. I could feel my ecstasy creeping up on me, like magma rising inside a volcano. I cried out wantonly, the heat rising as he worked me, exploring every detail of my canal with his thick shaft.

He let go of my throat and moved both his hands to grab onto my ass and squeezed, steadying me so he could pound me harder and climb to release. His thrusts became erratic and sloppy and I could tell he was just as close as I was. I moaned loudly as he rammed into me harder and faster, burying himself deeper and making my arousal burn.

I could feel it coming, so close. I was about to boil over and all I needed was him. Just him. He continued thrusting like a raging animal, digging his nails into my flesh and scraping them along my ass, stinging sweetly. I whimpered at the sensation and tightened my legs.

“Cum for me, doll.” He panted. “I wanna feel you cum on my cock.”

He plunged into me, pushing the magma higher and just so close to bursting. It was coming. I could feel it.

He pounded again. So close. Again and again, so hard inside me. Just a little more...

I screamed out, closing my eyes and letting everything go. The feeling of my orgasm washed over me like a tidal wave of pure elation. My whole body shook from the force of it and I trembled like a leaf. Jerome continued to thrust into me until he too reached his climax. He growled like a beast and I felt him throb, releasing his hot load of sticky lust deep inside me.

We both relaxed, catching our breath and he stared down into my eyes. He unlatched his hands from the flesh of my ass and brought one round to gently stroke my cheek with his fingertips. It was quiet, but only for a minute.

He threw his head back and laughed like the madman he was, before pulling out of me and stepping back. My legs dropped to the floor and he began to put himself away and zip his trousers back up.

“Well, that was fantastic, dollface. Thanks for playing nice with me.” He said, throwing me a wink.

There was a loud metallic knock at the truck doors and I guessed whoever it was, was trying to get Jeromes attention.

“It’s been fun princess, really. But time waits for no man and I’ve got a party to attend” He said, smiling at me. “Well, more like crash.”

When he turned to leave, I tried to speak, but all that came out was intelligible muttering. He wasn’t going to leave me here, dangling, half naked and gagged like this? Was he? He began walking to the truck doors and I tried to call out.

“Oh! Wait, almost forgot.”

I felt a flood of relief when he began walking back to me.

“I’m gonna need this back.” He said and pulled the tie out of my mouth.

I was glad to finally be rid of it, but my joy was short lived, because he was starting to leave again.

“Hey...” I croaked; my mouth dry.

“Yeah, I’ll have someone come get you later.” He said, too nonchalantly for my liking. “For now, you can just... well, why don’t you just hang out?”

He laughed at his joke and opened the doors.

“Hey! You can’t leave me here!” I tried to shout, but my throat was too dry.

And then... he was gone. He really did just leave me alone, half naked in the back of a truck. How long would it be before someone found me? An hour? Two? The rest of the day?

All alone with my thoughts now, I decided the only thing to do now was wait. Wait and try and go over what the hell just happened between me and Jerome Valeska.

[servicetopkaradanvers]

I'm not sure if this is exactly the right place to say this, but I don't know if there is. And you're a smart person and critical thinker who has talked about this before. If this is totally weird, you can just delete it ofc. I've never properly watched Supergirl but I started reading fanfic around the time my mental health got real bad so it was a comfort thing I didn't bring too much thought to. I really identify with Lena and in the past, part of me has understood her actions-

and I know that they're wrong. The anti-alien rhetoric is obviously an allegory for racism or homophobia. She's violated people's basic human rights. And I'm scared that I'm a bad person because sometimes, I kind of get it. Which is insane because i'm a lesbian enby of color, i mean i get targeted by most of the -ist/ism actions. And I'm also too tired to think about things critically all the time. Supercorp was my comfort fic, content thing-

I knew it was problematic (the whole James thing makes me sick to my stomach, scared and sad) but I didn't know that Lena as a character was written that way. The metaphors never really clicked in my head because I never thought about it, but now I feel absolutely horrible about myself because I like and identify with Lena. I'm not really sure how to move on from here- I'm just tired. I wish there could be just one thing, one piece of media that wasn't prejudiced (granted sg is not the place to go if you want decent rep and the like) and all of those things I said earlier. Its just me somehow trying to justify how I felt and empathized with something I shouldn't have. So yeah, sorry that was really long. I hope you have a lovely day- sorry for the spam

FIRST of all, you’re fine, babe! Both in sending me this and in enjoying The Bad Media. That’s my thesis here: You’re fine. With this in mind, let’s unpack this big ol suitcase:

We’re living in a fandom moment where more than ever before, we’re thinking about the ideas we consume in fiction and how they may or may not affect us. This is a net positive! Fiction is not reality, but it undeniably impacts it, so for this and many other reasons, we should always think critically about what resonates with us and why. Does this mean dissecting every facet of something to find all the ways it might fall in line with oppressive power structures? Absolutely not.

You, as an individual, do not owe anyone an explanation for why you enjoy anything. Period. How you relate to a given character or why you like them is nobody's business but your own.

Supergirl, as a piece of media, is singularly awful in its lackluster lipservice to progressivism while simultaneously refusing to deliver any progressive themes. Socially and politically, it is a useless liberal wet dream. Kara is an immigrant from a dead culture working as the muscle for a secret FBI offshoot with zero accountability for all of the other aliens in diaspora she has rounded up and dumped into a cell without trial. Alex is allegedly a lesbian, but the key points of her endgame relationship are constantly deemed not important enough to get screen time, which is made even more absurd when examined from the angle that this series is marketed directly toward LGBT people. An embarrassing percentage of villains on this show are women of color, which is particularly loud when there are only 2 women in the main cast who aren't white. And "main" is extremely generous, given that Kelly is just there to Give Advice Good and everything M'gann says and does is as dry as toast.

My point here is that the whole show is rotted to its roots, and whatever quietly libertarian or even fascism-enabling bullshit they push onto Lena in a given week is par for the crusty, shitty course. Kara deciding that she's ok with the alien detection device because "there are bad aliens" is a lovely (read: awful) microcosm of why this show sucks so fucking hard. "People are entitled to their opinions" is for debates on whether pineapple goes on pizza, not for whether we should casually out, endanger, and disenfranchise our [insert minority metaphor here] because some of them are mean.

But what I would love for this fandom to wrap its head around, and what I hope you understand, anon, is that just because it happens on the show, doesn't mean we have to give a rat's ass about it. What the hell is The Canon, anyway? Especially in the case for Supergirl, which can't even get its own continuity right. Especially for an IP that has been rebooted dozens of times before and will be rebooted again in the future. We can just decide that Lena realized the horrible injustices she enabled through her position of power. We can even decide that they just didn't happen at all! This is all fake. It's not set in stone. Who came up with it, anyway? A network with a list of buzzwords they want included and a couple of D-tier showrunners cranking down caffeine to meet an absurdly tight deadline. It's not special. I can guarantee that you care about it infinitely more than they do, and you haven't even watched the damn show.

On a more personal level, people who are hurt, depressed, or traumatized have always and will always look for themselves in fiction. Myself included! And despite what lofty platitudes there may be on the matter, suffering does not make us kind. It does not make us better. Sometimes it's just suffering. Often it pulls us further from who we are meant to be. Often it just makes us "worse."

Trauma has made Lena emotionally brittle. A lifetime of manipulation and abuse has taught her to compartmentalize herself and lock her feelings behind a maze of doors. When she does let love in, she accepts it so wild and vulnerable that she can't see the red flags behind the rosy lenses. She latches so hard onto people she deems virtuous that she holds them to a standard none could fulfill. Her pain has to go somewhere, so it oozes out of her, into Non Nocere, into the post-reveal rift. She's a powder keg, and Kara spent 4 years shoveling more gunpowder onto the pile while holding the match between her teeth.

And despite these fatal flaws that make perfect sense through the eyes of Lena's trauma, she is so full of love. Like Kara, her suffering did not make her kind. She is kind in spite of her suffering. These are the characters we are drawn to when we're hurting. Lena’s trauma is an inextricable part of her, but it is not all of her, and neither are her mistakes.

There truly is not and never will be a piece of media that is absolutely innocent of the harmful structures thrust upon us by society, because we ourselves also participate in that society whether we are critical of it or not, whether we strive to change it or not. I'm flawed. You're flawed. Bettering ourselves is not a journey toward an ultimate destination of perfection. It is a garden we nurture in an endless labor of love because the joy that comes from seeing it flourish and change vastly outweighs the work we put into it and the weeds popping up around its unkempt edges. This is a lesson Lena herself could probably stand to internalize. Probably with lots and lots of therapy. Lots. And lots.

So, to circle back to the start of this? You're fine. You recognized the logic in a traumatized character's mistakes because our own gravest errors more often than not stem from the ways we have been harmed in the past. It's what makes Lena (or, at the very least, the many adaptations of Lena that exist in this fandom) a good character. She is, to her core, characterized proof that a crumbling foundation and poisonous soil do not define us. Which is why watching her heal and grow and learn a healthier kind of love is so, so wonderful.

In closing, I think it's worth mentioning that being critical of media does not mean that we stop enjoying the parts of it we like. There is a lot of gold to be pulled from the steaming pile of shit that is CW Supergirl, and that's why we're all here in the first place. So I really hope you can continue to enjoy it in whatever way makes you smile <3

[addictedtostorytelling]

What do you think Grissoms favorite thing about Sara is and vice versa? 🥰

hi, anon!

i think it's probably hard for them to pick just one favorite thing, so i’ll take a bigger swing after the “keep reading,” if you’re interested.

__

grissom's favorite things about sara

grissom loves how accepting sara is of him. like he tells greg in episode 05x16 "big middle," the thing that really gets his "juices flowing" is not being judged, so that sara can know him inside and out and be aware of both his strengths and his flaws and still so unconditionally love him just means the world to him. her informed care for him makes him feel safe and like despite all of his fears and doubts about himself, he is worthwhile.

he also loves how curious sara is and how she approaches science like he does. as billy petersen has talked about, “[grissom and sara's] attraction to each other was always based on the work. [they] were always in some kind of mind meld when [they] were working. there was nobody he would rather be in the lab with or on a crime scene with than sara. she got it. she got him, and he eventually got her.” to have someone who wants to figure out his puzzles—both literal and metaphorical—at his side is the thrill of his life.

down those same lines, he also loves her intelligence. she is one of the few people he's ever met who constantly keeps him on this toes intellectually speaking, and not only is he attracted to her cleverness and genius but he is also often reverenced by it. all of her inspired, brilliant, "where did that idea even come from?" solves; the answers she comes up with when no one else can; the way she's frequently several steps ahead of everyone else; her resourcefulness; her creativity; her talent for analytical thinking—it all invigorates and enthuses him. he loves watching the way her mind works.

catherine was absolutely right in episode 07x23 “the good, the bad, & the dominatrix” when she said that he needed a woman who could challenge him, beat him at mental chess, etc.; she was just wrong about who that woman ultimately ended up being. it was sara all along.

another thing he really loves is sara's goodness. in many ways, grissom views himself as this inherently dark person with misanthropic inclinations and an unsettling likeness to many of the killers whose cases he solves, so to be loved by someone like sara—who does the right thing for its own sake; who, despite all of the horrible events that have happened in her life, still believes that justice is worth fighting for and that people are worth saving; who is so kind to others, softhearted, and forgiving; who occasionally gets hurt because she continually trusts people and believes in their better natures, even at times when it might be more prudent for her to be more closed off; who is such an unfailing source of love and support for him and the other people she cares for—is something close to a miracle in his eyes; such a transcendent and edifying thing for him. it makes him feel like he's being bathed in light and, again, gives him this sense that maybe he's not as much of a lost cause as he always assumed. it motivates him to do good and be the best version of himself. seeing sara's goodness in action also just leaves him in awe. he finds himself constantly impressed and inspired by her and how she conducts herself. as he tells heather in episode 16x02 "immortality" pt. ii, sara truly does restore his faith in the human being; she is everything good in the world to him.

then, just to list some of the "little things":

he loves her smile and laugh, which is hands-down, no question his favorite sound in the world;

he loves how tender she is with him and how she knows how to soothe him at times when he's upset;

he loves how passionate she is and how when she loves someone and/or believes in something, she'll go all out for them/it;

he loves that she wears her heart on her sleeve and doesn't hold back from taking risks, even when she's afraid;

he loves the way she touches him—just the feeling of her soft hands on his skin is all it takes to wake up his soul;

he loves how she remembers everything he says;

he loves how relentless she is and how she won't give up on anything or anyone even though her stubbornness can also drive him up the wall sometimes;

he loves that she's a survivor and that she's brave;

he loves how kind she is to others and how attentive she is to the needs of her friends and family members;

he loves her sense of humor, both the things she says to make him laugh and the things she laughs at from him;

he loves that she's a skilled auto (and boat) mechanic, plus how cute she looks in coveralls with engine grease smudged on her face;

he loves that she loves animals—and how she talks to them like they’re people—and plants and especially that she is interested in bugs and will do entomology research with him;

he loves how she sneezes because it’s adorable;

he loves that she encourages him to try new things and to have fun and to not take life too seriously;

he loves that she teases him but never in a mean way;

he loves that she's handy around the house and that most of their in-home repairs and installations have been her work;

he loves that she learned asl for him and his mom, even though doing so didn't come easily to her;

he loves when she does complex math in her head and thinks her doing so is pretty sexy;

he loves that she takes photos of everything because she loves their life together and wants to preserve their happy moments;

he loves the little things she does to show she loves him, like cutting out articles she thinks will interest him from the newspaper or scientific journals and hanging them on the fridge for him to find and bringing him coffee and tea whenever she's cold (which is much more often than when he is) and helping him feel better from migraines and having every number relevant to him from social security to academic publication count memorized to holding hands with him while they're driving places together just because they can, etc.;

he loves the way she pronounces certain words and how her eyes absolutely light up when she rhapsodizes about physics;

he loves that she cries at every vaguely sentimental movie they watch;

he loves that she is a bleeding heart who gets involved with all sorts of causes, from marine conservation to criminal justice reform initiatives;

he loves that she'll play trivia games with him ad infinitum;

he loves the way she looks at him before they kiss—like everything she sees in him is made of gold;

he loves seeing her lying naked in their bed and still can't believe that this life is his life now;

he loves the way she says his name;

he loves when she flirts with him—how he's still flustered after so many years;

he loves how special she makes him feel, listening to him, knowing him, being so gentle with his most fragile things, like there's nothing more important in the entire world to her than his well-being;

etc.

the longer he and sara are together, the more he finds to love about her. he thinks about her all the time. never for a second doesn't feel lucky to have her. loves being loved by her.

sara's favorite things about grissom

though he doubts his own goodness, she doesn’t for a second. in fact, she believes in it more than anything. she loves how compassionate, humane, and just he is; how much he cares about the people in the cases they work and his deep capacity for empathy. she adores that he is a champion of persons who are vulnerable, that he speaks for the dead, that he honors and protects women and children, that he allies with the marginalized, etc. though of course she never likes for him to feel sad, she finds herself deeply touched whenever she sees his sorrow for someone he couldn’t save or an investigation that ended badly. while he often thinks the worst of himself, she knows he is the best—that he has this deep-seated and unfailing desire in him to help others and to right wrongs; that he is compelled by his nature to try to better the society he lives in and to show kindness to the individuals he encounters. that he can’t see in himself the virtues that seem so obvious to her honestly breaks her heart, which is why she never misses the opportunity to remind him that he is so much better than he gives himself credit for. just knowing that someone like him exists helps her have faith in the world. he’s such a good man, and the fact that he is is so important to her.

to that same end, she also loves how inherently gentle he is. as i talk about here, “to my mind, part of the reason why she is attracted to grissom is because he’s generally very soft-spoken; is a committed pacifist; he’s not domineering; and even when he’s mad at her, he doesn’t yell at her.” coming from the background she does, she only ever could have loved a man who was soft, who seldom raised his voice (and when he did, only did so in defense of others or in the expression of righteous outrage over injustices), who treated others kindly, and who didn’t misuse power at times when he held it. that grissom is so fundamentally mild and never wants to hurt anyone or cause anyone to be afraid of him makes her feel 100% safe in his presence.

then, of course, she loves his mind—how it works, as well as his raw intelligence and his education. that he is such a consummate pragmatist who considers every possibility before taking action deeply impresses her. as she talks about in reboot episode 01x04 “long pig,” there aren’t any gears that shift for him until he sees the way they operate, and in her opinion, that’s one of his best qualities; that he is so patient and methodical in his thinking is a trait she values in him, particularly as she knows she is often very impulsive herself. then of course there is his actual genius. she first fell in love with him listening to him lecture, and to this day she adores when he unveils his beautiful mind to her, philosophizing and laying out theories and dissertating on the nature of the universe. she finds it incredibly attractive when he wins the day with their cases by being sharper than anybody else. ditto for the times when he pulls some obscure reference or fact out of nowhere or is able to recall the most miniscule details. (sometimes he does so just to impress her, she knows, and it works every time.) that he’s so broadly read and a polymath who knows not only his own area of expertise but is widely learned on everything makes him endlessly interesting to her. she never tires of watching him think things through in real time. he’s the most brilliant person she knows, and she loves him for it.

another thing she loves is how he loves her. he is the only person in her life who has just consistently been there for her when she needed him and who has always believed in her, no matter what. his love, though often quiet, is patient and deep and unwavering and has been so even at times when they’ve been apart from each other. for years, she was too afraid to tell anyone her secrets for fear that if she did, they would reject her or at least that the way they regarded her would change for the worse once they knew. she always worried that she’d somehow be “too much”: too needy, too broken, too all-over-the-place, too intense, too difficult. but then she told him the truth about herself and her past and let him see her at her messiest and most vulnerable, and not only was he not repulsed or put off, but he actually stepped up even more for her thereafter; it was like his esteem of and care for her deepened once he realized how much she’d been through and came to know who she really was, including what all of her jagged edges were. what he showed to her wasn’t pity or condescension but this very genuine admiration and concern. and since then, he has just always calmly, deeply, stubbornly loved her. his love has this almost deliberate feel to it—“on purpose, on purpose i am going to care about you” and all that, you know? she always had such a hard time believing that anyone would want to stick by her once they knew about all of her flaws and hang-ups, but he has. he’s been her stalwart. and even though at times they’ve broken apart, he’s inevitably come back to her in time; he’s never fallen out of love with her. for twenty-four years now and counting, he has kept her in his heart, through thick and thin, and the fact that he has means more to her than she could ever fully express. he’s really the reason she even knows what love is—what it feels like to love and be loved—and she’ll never not feel lucky to have him in her life.

then, just to list some of the “little things”:

she loves how boyish he sometimes is—curious and playful, with that little quirk of his head and his eyes so bright and blue;

she loves his sweetheartedness and how concerned he is about her feelings, always checking on how she’s doing and being mindful of what he knows might trigger or upset her;

she loves how much he loves to learn and that he’s so committed to science;

she loves how excited he gets about his special interests: the bugs, the baseball, the chess, the roy rogers memorabilia, all of which he will speak of breathlessly (and adorably) for hours if given the chance;

she loves how respectful he is of women and how he supports the women in his life;

she loves that look he gets on his face when he’s thinking hard—the brow furrowed nearly to scowling, the serious expression where you can almost see his mind at work, all of the gears shifting into place;

she loves how effortlessly charming he can be, spouting off all of these ridiculously romantic lines out of nowhere, still making her blush even though they’ve been married now for years;

she loves his inappropriate crime scene puns;

she loves his wiliness;

she loves how endearingly shy he often is, especially when he’s laying bare his heart;

she loves that he’s a good teacher;

she not so secretly loves when he’s cocky—when he uses his smarts to take down a bully and is smug and self-righteous about it or when he pulls out his expertise and is just oozing confidence, she finds him just incredibly sexy;

she loves that he has a quote or a reference for every situation;

she loves sleeping in the same bed with him and hearing him breathing beside her;

she loves all of his little grissom quirks: the way he holds his hands out from his sides and fidgets/stims with his fingers when he’s nervous, how he always has to finish puzzles and can’t stand to leave them undone, his almost antiquated politeness talking on the phone to strangers, how he listens to opera with the volume turned all the way up as if he were a teenager blaring rock music, his bowlegged gait, how he takes inspiration from mundane household things, the way he obsesses over his projects, the way he still writes mostly using a pen and paper and longhand as if computers had never been invented, etc., etc.;     

she loves when he calls her by endearments because he’s just so earnest and sweet;

she loves watching him use asl and interact with his mother and her friends because it’s almost like there’s this whole other (bonus!) side to his personality in his deaf culture, with this kind of irreverent sense of humor and outgoingness that only really comes out when he’s signing and is always a delightful surprise;

she loves that he’s an animal and bug lover and how cute he is with dogs, in particular;

she loves the way he touches her with such care and adoration;

she loves how much he loves their team family members and what a good mentor he is to warrick, nick, and greg especially;

she loves that he buys her plants when he’s feeling fond;

she loves how honest he is;

she loves how much he makes her laugh and his sense of humor in general (which matches so well with hers);

she loves his morals and how much integrity he has, always standing by his convictions even when doing so makes him unpopular or loses him some social or political advantage;

she loves how attentive he is, both in bed and just in general;

she loves that he cooks for her and that he’s constantly throwing blankets over her to keep her warm and that he just takes care of her overall (and especially because she’d never had anybody do that for her before him);

she loves how safe she feels when he’s holding her; 

she loves teasing him and watching him get all flustered;

she loves how sentimental he is about anniversaries and birthdays;

she loves how much his love for her and desire to make her happy permeates his actions so that she only has to look at how he treats her to know how profoundly and deeply he cares for her, always;

etc.

she first fell in love with him when she was twenty-six years old, and she has only grown to love him more since then. he is the best person she has ever met, and she’s never not amazed that somehow (against all odds) she ended up with him. he is truly her one and only and her one true love, and she thinks he’s absolutely wonderful.

thanks for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

[mira--mira]

Hi! I was wondering

How do you think Hashirama and Madara would be in a Road to Ninja version?

I remember once reading a Hashimada fic (which I never finished RIP) that was about Madara appearing in the RTN universe and the 3 things that stucked with me were:

1.- Madara was the first Hokage (something that Madara thought was horrible when he saw his sculpted face on the Hokage mountain 🤣)

And personally I think that it would not have been like that even in the RTN universe because we didn't see his face along with the other faces of Hokages in the movie (Yeah, apparently I'm basing myself on a movie which I'm not even sure if it's canon or not, even though Kishimoto wrote it) and the RTN characters didn't seem to even know who Madara is.

2.- Hashirama having his bowlcut as an adult

And I agree with the Madara from that fanfic, it looks awful on him. Hashirama, babe, I'm sorry but the only ones who can rock that style are Guy Sensei and Rock Lee, I know you just were trying to be cool but it doesn't suite you.

3.- Tobirama was a porn writer

Instead of being a fan of forbidden jutsu and creating justus, he wrote porn novels a la Jiraiya. And I'll hold that headcanon with my dead hands.

The only other fanfic that places the founders in the RTN universe is one where the protagonist is Mito (it's an interesting one-shot that pairs her with Itama 🤔)

She was kind of a shy person 🤔? And so it was Tobirama 🤣 which I found fun.

Hashirama, as the first fanfic I mentioned, was the Tobirama of the place (saddenly Madara wasn't in this fic).

So I would like to know what are your versions of the founders (or only Hashirama and Madara if it is too much) in the RTN universe! And how do you think things would be

Hmm, RTN is an interesting concept to me but, to be honest, I don't think Konoha would exist if a lot of personalities got flipped 😂 I haven't read any RTN fics with the founders, but if you, or anyone else, have links at hand I'd love to check them out 👀

1. Madara

Here's the big one and the crux of why I don't think the village would exist. Typically I characterize Madara as an extremely responsible man who internalizes things when he shouldn't, takes himself way too seriously, is aggressive and abrasive even to people he loves sometimes, but genuinely loves the people closest too him. Reversing this would make a character that slacks off, takes no responsibility, and is completely passive in life and has fleeting attachments to others around him. Assuming he wouldn't die on the battlefield, I could see the RTN "alternate" personality coming about of Madara's being so overpowered and competent that he loses interest and distances himself from things before he can get attached and lose them.

It makes building a village very hard though. (At first I was tempted to go RTN Sasuke route and maybe RTN!Madara is a little more openly flirty than canon!Madara, but the passivity and refusal to take responsibility would be the "core" qualities for me.)

2. Hashirama

Hashirama is a bit weird because he has a lot of surface-level "conflicting" traits in canon. He is optimistic but he pushes beyond his natural attitude and uses it as a mask to hide instead of addressing his feelings. He's mischievous, likes jokes and games, and can be a bit hedonistic with his pleasure but can equally be serious when necessary and will willingly sacrifice for others around him. And simultaneously, Hashirama and Madara are connected by a shared sense of idealism but also anger. Hashirama is a very kind, but extremely angry, man. I think a RTN!Hashirama would share a kind of apathy of RTN!Madara but instead of passivity his lack of anger would manifest as cruelty. Because canon!Hashirama is angry but his anger is usually a righteous kind. I don't think RTN!Hashirama would go out of his way to be cruel, but he doesn't have the empathy of canon!Hashirama, especially to others' suffering. He enjoys fighting just a bit too much and has no qualms about killing. In his mind, he should always come first in any situation and prioritizing (or even considering) others' is effort and him going out of his way to be "nice" and the other should be thankful. Similarly if he feels any negative emotion, he won't bottle it up and swallow it down, he'll immediately address it, usually confrontationally. RTN!Hashirama is as intelligent as his canon counterpart but he doesn't suffer fools and he hates it when people underestimate him. He's pretty proud and vain, tbh.

I really don't think the above would make him the "Tobirama" of RTN verse. To me Hashirama and Tobirama have different core values and perspectives and inverting Hashirama's doesn't make it become Tobirama's, if that makes sense. This one is also wordy bc I immediately knew how RTN!Madara would be RTN!Hashirama is a bit harder to pin down. But I hope it's clear why I have doubts about the village existing...maybe if RTN!Hashirama got it in his mind as a pet project for the hell of it, that he'd be a better leader for the country and not just the Senju alone, and RTN!Madara liked the idea of no responsibility and being able to detach even further than he already was? But that's still kind of grasping for a reason.

3. Hashimada

Equally I think any Hashirama/Madara relationship would be ehhh. They definitely wouldn't have the overwhelming bond of their canon counterparts, and it could be a relationship ripe for unhappiness. The closest I can think of to making the ship work is RTN!Madara would be drawn to Hashirama's absurd level of self-confidence and able to let the casual cruelty slide off instead of getting worked up about it. In a way RTN!Hashirama is stable and predictable. If he's pretty overpowered, there's less of a chance RTN!Madara would lose him, so their relationship isn't deep but it's more or less dependable and Madara knows exactly what he's going to get. In contrast RTN!Hashirama has an audience in the form of RTN!Madara and a partner that's not going to push back against his ideas. RTN!Madara doesn't ask for much and he doesn't complain when RTN!Hashirama puts himself first. He doesn't want, or might not be capable of, the deep emotional bond their canon counterparts have. RTN!Madara wouldn't leave Konoha (if it existed) in the AU, because he doesn't really care. If someone upset RTN!Hashirama and he decided to leave to 'do it right' RTN!Madara would probably follow, maybe out of some loyalty for RTN!Hashirama but mostly because it's what's easiest.

4. Tobirama

The core of Tobirama's character to me is prioritizing logic over emotion and both a conscious and unconscious failure to realize he can't completely eliminate emotion. Tobirama loves his brother, he's curious and has a desire to find out what makes things work and is willing to bend morality to get results if it'll serve a greater good. He's very aware of the unfairness of the world but believes it's an unspoken truth of humanity and can only be mitigated through logical means, but never completely erased. He'll be the sacrificial lamb, the one that works in shadows so his brother can have his utopian dream. Despite everything, he loves his genin, the strongest bonds he has aside from Hashirama, and does try to instill in them lessons he think will help them and lead to peace and stability in the village. He's still influenced by the prejudices of his time and can never find it in him to truly forgive the Uchiha.

A RTN!Tobirama would be a man ruled by emotion. Him writing erotica all day definitely could be one way this manifests lol. But overall he's sensitive and spiritual and can't stand the idea of killing. He and RTN!Hashirama don't get along and he actively tries to avoid his brother. RTN!Tobirama has equally strong principles as canon!Tobirama, but they're pacifist in nature and while he likes his studies, he prefers to be out talking to people and learning from them first hand. He's very naive and can be easily taken advantage of and he has trouble focusing on any one thing for too long. No matter how many times this happens, he never can harden his heart or be overly suspicious of others. RTN!Tobirama would most likely be the one support peace in this AU. He embraces the Uchiha and all the Senjus past enemies with open arms, almost to a foolish degree. It'd be a bad idea if he became hokage in this AU because he's a terrible negotiator and has a bad people-pleasing streak and struggles with long-term tactics. With the exception of RTN!Hashirama, who he considers an aberration who doesn't have a soul, humans at their core all have good intentions at heart.

5. Mito

I characterize Mito as a very level-headed woman. Her marriage to Hashirama is political in nature but they grow to be good friends and she never expected to fall in love and she's glad Hashirama didn't want a traditional wife. Mito is devoted to her community work (she works hands-on with people in the village), she seeks out connections with others and, despite the distance, remains close with her family in Uzushio, constantly writing them letters. She's spiritual and follows the Uzumakis' beliefs (not gonna list this OoT spoiler lol) and studies fuinjutsu in her spare time, something she's done since she was a child. She is willing to sacrifice if it meant protecting something she considered greater than herself, much to her own personal detriment. She loves and is proud of her children and grandchildren, but if she had a choice, she would have chosen to remain childless, she finds her true calling elsewhere.

RTN!Mito, similarly to RTN!Tobirama, is ruled by emotions. She dreams of one day making a good marriage for herself and centers romance and being a mother as her ideal life, but she's extremely picky when it comes picking the perfect husband. RTN!Mito knows how much she's worth and she refuses to settle and will not even entertain the idea of an arranged marriage. She has a hard time forming long-lasting, deep bonds with other people and views starting her own family as the solution to this problem. At times she can be a bit absent-minded and unintentionally selfish, but she's not actively malicious. She blusters a lot and depending on the situation can come off as cold and uncaring, but it's only to hide the depth of her true feelings and loneliness. In this AU she would absolutely refuse to marriage RTN!Hashirama. Nothing on hell or earth, could make her change her mind.

Mito is such a blank-slate character it feels like writing an oc more than a canon character, tbh. And this is something I don't see brought up a lot but a "heart full of love" to combat the kyuubi's hatred to me has never been exclusive to romantic or familial (to children) love. *cough* I want a complex female character who's not vilified for not wanting to have children and/or regretting having them *cough* Mito's "love" was for the people of Konoha and Uzushio. My personal headcanon regarding her and Hashirama's child (I don't think she had more than one) was that she was dedicated to her son, but quickly realized being a mother wasn't her dream or something she even actively liked. The kid was well-cared for and she was dutiful towards him, but Hashirama was the parent that loved and embraced him with his whole heart and it led to some tension between Mito and her son as the kid could tell the difference and neither of them were "wrong" to feel the way they did. This is why Tsunade was shown with Hashirama instead of Mito, he was a lot more present in her life when she was young (instead of Kishi just not having made Mito as a character yet). But after Hashirama and Tsunade's dad died (and then Nawaki), she and Mito grew close but it was definitely more of a friendship or student/mentor relationship rather than a traditional grandmother/granddaughter relationship but both were satisfied with it and loved eachother. Likewise I didn't want RTN!Mito's characterization to be shallow and hit misogynistic undertones with her being an "opposite" to Mito's calm, level-headed, focused on her work/passions characterization.

6. Closing thoughts

#1: Wow this got long #2: I feel conflicted about RTN because it seemed to flip surface-level characteristics instead of deep characterizations, and ignored flaws altogether. The ones above, esp. Hashirama and Madara's, are kind of dark in a way? But that's the only way it makes sense to me...Gai and Lee caring about style and being stylish is a funny joke but if you were to actually poke and prod and say their personalities were inverted, neither of them would be top-notch ninja as we know...unless I'm just completely misremembering RTN because I realize it's been years since I saw it lol. Anyway, hope this was entertaining!

[dangermousie]

2020 End of Year Post - kdrama edition

You can find my 2020 cdrama post here: dangermousie.tumblr.com/post/638449659546845184/2020-end-of-year-post-cdrama-edition

This is only going to cover kdramas that aired in 2020; if it originally aired another year, it’s not on this list.

It’s been a pretty lackluster kdrama year. There are probably only 5 kdramas I truly loved and only three of them I was really obsessed over. Better luck in 2021!

DRAMAS WATCHED

(In order of liking from least to most as opposed to pure quality; I am including if I’ve seen enough to make up my mind; yes I realize that’s inaccurate, but that’s my list)

42 Born Again - so bad, so incoherent, so insane, I have no idea why the leads signed up for it (and unlike some of the other watchers, I think it was awful from the very start.) There is literally nothing about this drama that makes sense.

41 Love with Flaws - a bunch of people who should be tried under the Geneva Convention.

40 Sweet Munchies - Jung Il Woo proves his inability to pick a functional script.

39 Meow the Secret Boy - if you ever wanted to bang a cat, this drama is for you. Not being a furry, however...

38 Do Do Sol Sol La Sol - I lost braincells just typing out this title.

37 When I Was the Most Beautiful - the only way it’s not the dumbest, most pointless melo of 2020 is because Born Again considerately came out the same year.

36 Woman of 9.9 Billion - if you want to watch an artsy French movie about miserable people, but only badly made, boy do I have a drama for you.

35 Lies after Lies - screams after screams.

34 Backstreet Rookie - people were up in arms about various problematic plots. I am a survivor of many plots much more problematic but even I couldn’t survive how utterly boring and annoying this drama was and how utterly irritating the leads were. This has taken Ji Chang Wook off my top favorites into “should I even check his latest Lovestruck in the City? Probably not” territory almost single-handedly (Melt Me helped, to be fair.)

33 Men Are Men - boring is boring.

32 Dinner Mate - two beautiful boring people eat out a lot.

31 Was It Love - no it wasn’t.

30 Alice - Joo Won in the shower can make up for a multitude of sins but not plot nonsense of such magnitude. When you find yourself thinking it would be better if he hooked up with the alternate universe version of his mother because at least then something entertaining would happen, you know it’s bad.

29 More than Friends - started out OK, then made me hate basically everyone and kept going.

28 Start-Up - honestly, it’s probably more decent than its place here, but the toxic and batshit fandom for it (the worst this year) made me feel like breaking out in hives any time it’s even mentioned.

27 The Spies who Loved Me - how to take a good cast and waste it.

26 Private Lives - it was good but it never took off with its concept and spent more time on the incoherent plot than the OTP which was its one strength. It’s a decent drama but coming after Heartless City and My Beautiful Bride from the same writer, it’s a disappointment.

25 Record of Youth - as high as it is due to Park Bo Gum hard carrying this entire awful drama on his shoulders and doing it so well I finished it. Alas, while he is in one drama (and that drama is great), the rest of the characters and the entirety of the script are a pointless useless mess.

24 Do You Like Brahms - excellent first third, mediocre middle, and terrible last third. I don’t know what musical term applies to this? Diminuendo, I think.

23 I’ll Go to You When the Weather is Nice - nice and mellow but nothing much happens.

22 Forest - mainly for Park Hae Jin’s excellent and frequently naked bod.

21 The Ballot - I didn’t love it as much as everyone did but it was well-made.

20 Hyena - more romance and less weird law stuff would make it better.

19 365 Repeat the Year - surprisingly solid.

18 The Game Towards Zero - see 365.

17 When My Love Blooms - very old fashioned, very lovely.

16 Chocolate - also very old fashioned and very lovely but also with Yoon Kye Sang performing medical procedures bleeding and shirtless. MMM.

15 (tie) Secret Royal Inspector - a fun if run of the mill sageuk.

15 Find Me In Your Memory - best melo this year.

14 Mystic Pop Up Bar - surprisingly good even though I wasn’t planning to check it out.

13 Where Your Eyes Linger - came out of nowhere but was tender and hopeful and lovely.

12 Itaewon Class - Park Seo Joon hard carries a drama that is already excellent. Love it.

11 Psychopath Diary - Yoon Shi Yoon is such a treat in a hilarious, cynical, dark comedy.

10 Kairos - more like ouroboros.

9 Queen Love and War - in a year where sageuks are very rare, this was solid and surprisingly moving and shippy.

8 The King Eternal Monarch - people didn’t like it but I did. It’s no masterpiece and both the leads and the writers have better dramas, but it was a lovely romantic fairy tale for me.

7 Mr. Queen - sharp, hilarious, and some of my favorite actors.

6 Psycho But It’s OK - healing, sharp cinematography and even sharper chemistry.

5 Crash Landing on You - the last ep pissed me off so much this drama is dead to me but I loved it so much until then I can’t place it lower in good conscience.

4 Train - who knew I would go this hard for an OCN drama or that OCN would do romance so well? But this time-travel mystery romance is just incredible and I shipped the OTP and rooted for the characters and loved every last bit of it.

3 Run On - this is the drama Record of Youth wanted to be but failed. Smart and lived in, you feel like you are peeking at real people, but also even four episodes in, I am so invested in the main characters separately and together, and care for them so much, it’s a little frightening.

1 (tie) Tale of the Nine Tailed - my perfect fantasy romance. I liked it better than Goblin, yeah I said it.

1 Flower of Evil - all the tropes I love in one incredible package. I would rewatch episodes waiting for new ones trying to puzzle the story and to stay withdrawal but it works just as well on rewatch. Lee Jun Ki brings his trademark tortured intensity and for once, both his leading lady and his script back him up and are worthy of that. It’s perfect.

FAVORITE DRAMA

It’s a tie between Tale of the Nine Tailed and Flower of Evil but if I had to pick just one, FoE, because it had me seriously obsessed and guessing about the protagonist and gave me the narrative tropes I love so much and an OTP that statisfied all my hurt/comfort kinks and then some.

WORST DRAMA

Born Again - honestly, this is so bonkers it almost becomes good but alas...

FAVORITE MALE CHARACTER

Do Hyun Soo/Baek Hee Sung, Flower of Evil - he is so messed up, so on edge, so traumatized. Yet capable of so much warmth and caring even as he himself doesn’t realize his humanity. FoE is basically a story of a man pushed and punished by the world for his entire life who, because of one woman, finds a safe place and peace and slowly comes to life without realizing it, and watching his desperation to keep this small bit of normalcy is so heartbreaking and exciting all at once. Plus, you start the drama thinking he’s a psychopathic serial killer and end it (if you are me) thinking he must be protected at all costs and if anyone even looks at him wrong they must suffer, and that’s quite a change!

FAVORITE FEMALE CHARACTER

Nam Ji Ah, Tale of the Nine Tailed - she is so funny and tough and smart and loving and amazing that I will totally buy that a literal demi-god will do anything and everything for her and love her for literal eternity.

NEEDS TO BE MURDERED

Dad in Record of Youth - yes in a year with serial killers and supernatural demons, I picked a normal character from a mediocre drama. It’s his everyday awfulness to his family that hits so hard and I am sad he never got his comeuppance.

FAVORITE SHIP

Ji Ah x Yeon - a fearless reporter and an immortal demi-god who’s been hoping for his human beloved to reincarnate. A really rare set-up where the OTP is equally ride or die, so compatible and completely BAMF. I got why he waited for her for that long and then fell in love with her all over again. Perfection.

Runner up: Flower of Evil - he is so messed up he literally does not believe he is capable of love or empathy, but he falls in love with her anyway and so utterly she permeates his entire life. She is tough as nails and only believes what she sees and is the sole person who believes in him against the world. She loves him but he needs her. She needs him but he loves her. They are amazing.

FAVORITE SECONDARY OTP

Seo Dan x Gu Seung Jun, Crash Landing on You, North Korean x Conman were so good I shipped them harder than the main OTP and the end of that storyline pissed me off so much I dumped the drama and didn’t finish it for months (and it’s still dead to me.)

NOTP

Record of Youth - it started out and they didn’t have much chemistry but the dialogues were interesting and I thought the chemistry would grow. It didn’t and deteriorated, their dialogues became boring and relationship had zero development (about as much as the supposed female lead.) I think we were supposed to feel bad they broke up and they were going for a bittersweet open ending, instead I found myself happy about the break up of two incompatible, chemistry-less people and hoping for the love of God they never get back together.

FAVORITE SCENE

Yeon and the bridge of knives, Tale of the Nine Tailed - Yeon choosing to undergo the creeptastic bridge of knives for a chance to save Ji Ah, who at that point he is not aware is the reincarnation of his Joseon love because, as he says, he doesn’t care if she is or isn’t, it just would be more horrible to have her die than to undergo the horrific torture he is undergoing, and then the sequence with his catching her, her weeping over him and the fact that she is the original Joseon girl revealed and all the bandaging and his watching her sleep and all that loveliness, is everything for yours truly.

Runner up: Hyun Soo having that break-down at the cliff at the end of ep 15 of Flower of Evil as Ji Won desperately tries to convince him she is alive and he finally stumbles to her.

Runner runner up (it’s my list, I will do what I want): Do Won preparing to blow his brains out to give a chance to Seo Kyung to live in Train.

BIGGEST CRUSH

Seon-Gyeom, Run On. Yeah, I know. Im Siwan is tiny, delicate featured and has a runner’s build, none of which are things that normally appeal to me. But his character is so odd, so honest, so unflinching in pursuing what he thinks is right, so incapable of self-pity despite plenty of reasons for it, and so ridiculously attractive when he smiles, I don’t even care.

BEST SCENE STEALER CHARACTER

Kim Bum, TotNT - I started out being annoyed by him and ended up looking forward to his scenes and being distraught by his ending.

NEEDS A SEQUEL

Honestly, none. I was fine with all the endings. I wouldn’t mind seeing post-end life of Tale of the Nine Tailed characters or the OTP settling into their literal new world in Train, but I am good.

TROPE THAT NEEDS TO DIE

Time jump that solves all the problems off screen or alternatively years pass and everyone is frozen - something that kdramas need to learn and need to learn badly. See Record of Youth, Brahms and Start Up.

FAVORITE TROPE WE’VE SEEN A LOT OF

Men who are ride or die for their OTP - this was a great year for this - the male leads of four of my five dramas were beyond anything on that scale (only exception is Run On because it’s still too early to tell there.) Yes PLEASE.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT

This was a banner year for that what with Start Up, Do You Like Brahms, Record of Youth, and Private Lives all starting out well and nosediving off the cliff but winner is Crash Landing on You. I loved it so much for bulk of its run but the last episode pissed me off so much I deleted all my files and called it a day.

BIGGEST GOOD SURPRISE

Flower of Evil - I had no expectations of this drama and wasn’t even planning on watching it despite liking both the lead actors because yet another “look at evil serial killer be evil” drama with no romance was not my thing. Luckily someone convinced me there might be some romance and I peeked curiously. Honestly, their promo campaign was the most misleading and dumbest thing ever.

Runner up Psycho but it’s OK - I have never liked Kim Soo Hyun in anything before and the drama premise seemed WTF but it was shockingly good and KSH totally blew me away.

Hardest Working Lead

Yoon Shi Yoon - he starred in two (!!!) dramas in 2020 playing three characters and not only were both these dramas awesome in a lackluster year, but if it wasn’t for the fact that I knew it was the same actor and the fact that the characters shared a face, I would have never believed that they were played by the same actor. So good!

2020 DRAMAS I HAVEN’T SEEN THAT I MOST WANT TO WATCH

None. Covid Year gave me PLENTY of time

BEST NON-2020 DRAMA I’VE WATCHED IN 2020

My Beautiful Bride and Deserving of the Name - I was obsessed with both of them and honestly, they were much better than the bulk of 2020 kdramas I watched.

MOST ANTICIPATED IN 2021

The Moon That Rises in the Day, Hong Chun Gi, Joseon Exorcist, Island,  Frightening Cohabitation, Snowdrop.

[hen-of-letters]

Series 15 gives all of the characters you could ever care about their worst possible endings, but presents these endings as somehow good or satisfying or acceptable.  Here's a list.

The short version: they're Chuck's endings, and Chuck is a bad writer.  

None of the characters can escape the fate set out for them or break the cycle of trauma begun by Chuck.  The show itself doesn't even realise how truly awful these endings are - it dresses up a tragedy in pie gags and pretty colours and calls it a happy ending.  And in order to inflict these worst possible endings on its characters, the narrative has to be twisted and contorted in the most absurd of ways.

So, onto the list:

Adam: Forgotten and left to languish in the pit, he's finally freed, only to suffer an anticlimactic offscreen death and be forgotten again.  Michael, his only companion for so long, is also killed off.  In the finale, blood family seems to be all that matters - and yet he isn't mentioned.

Alternate Kaia: She helps rescue Kaia from the Bad Place, but chooses to remain there to face certain destruction rather than return to earth with Kaia, Dean and Sam.  This world is so hostile to her that death is preferable.  Her horrible, pointless death stands as a powerful statement about the real harm caused by exclusion, but the text doesn't seem to acknowledge the full horror of this.  Her death isn't remarked upon; it seems to suggest that both Kaia and her double are returned to their rightful places.  It's just one example of the show creating awful endings without seeming to understand how awful they truly are.  (I rant a lot more about Alternate Kaia here.)

Amara: After being betrayed and locked away for millennia, we see Amara's initial impulse for revenge and destruction transform into an admiration for creation.  She becomes an advocate for humanity and the world.  And yet she ends up being betrayed (by both the Winchesters and Chuck) and locked away again.  She's absorbed by Chuck in a way that doesn't fit within the logic of the show.  Chuck and Amara are equals - it doesn't make any sense that Chuck could overpower her.  Wouldn't they become a blend of the two of them?  And, since their separation caused the Big Bang, wouldn't their unity end the world?  Anyway, having the cosmic feminine be voiceless and invisible is the worst way for Amara's story to end.  Having Jack speak for her, saying that they are 'in harmony' tries to make this an acceptable fate for her, but only makes it worse.

Benny:  Another offscreen death, and this one feels particularly spiteful.  It really seems like he was killed just to be a conversation-starter for Cas and Dean.  However, if his fate can be sealed by a line of dialogue, then it only proves that confirmation of the fates of Eileen, AU Charlie and the other hunters could have been given in the same way.  Just one line could have done it - "I just spoke to Eileen, everyone's back."  Instead, at the end of 15.19 we're in the absurd position of having Sam and Dean toast the people they've lost without them even bothering to check who that may or not be.

Billie: The bizarre thing about Billie being revealed as a villain at the end of Season 15 was that she was supposed to be acting in self-interest - that she wanted to be the new God.  It made no sense.  What would make sense to me, though, would be if Chuck was controlling her (as Lucifer bound Death in Season 5).  Season 15 has strong echoes of Season 4 - and Billie took on both the role of Ruby (feeding Jack hearts rather than demon blood, but nevertheless making him into a weapon, with the price being the loss of his sense of self and ultimately his life) and Heaven (persuading Dean that it had to be this way, and telling him to go along with the plan).  We only have the Shadow's word for Billie's motivation, and we know she wasn't responsible for the deaths of the AU hunters, so in the end her status is ambiguous - she really seems to be a victim of Chuck's bad writing.  She's erased from the narrative along with Castiel, when really she should have been freed from Chuck's control and fighting on the side of nature and free will alongside the Winchesters.  Supernatural also concludes with nobody in the role of Death, which is a crazy loose thread left dangling.

Castiel: His confession was a thing of beauty, perfectly summing up the truth of both his and Dean's characters.  Both of them are made of and motivated by love.  And yet after speaking his truth, he is silenced.  He never gets to hear that he is loved in return (when the previous twelve seasons have made it abundantly clear to the audience that Dean loves Cas just as much as Cas loves Dean).  His capacity for love made him the only thing that Chuck could not control; as an agent of free will, he should have had a central role in Chuck's defeat.  

In 15x13, when Cas is in the Empty to see Ruby, the Shadow says: "funny thing about [Death's] plan, though... she didn't say anything about needing you. Baby, you can't just traipse in and out of here. It upsets the order of things."  To me, this sounded so much like 4x22's "you're not in this story" that I saw it as a pretty clear indication that Cas would play an important part in Chuck's defeat.  Because Team Free Will wouldn't follow the plan, would they?  They would find another way, wouldn't they?  Wouldn't they?

However, after the confession, he's never seen on screen again.  He's barely mentioned.  Eventually we're told he "helped" Jack, so he ends up where he started: as a servant of heaven.  He deserved to complete his fall, to become human, to live as well as speak his truth.  Making him a silent, unseen instrument of heaven undoes his entire arc.  Erasing him from the narrative requires the extraordinary warping of that narrative: nothing about his death suggests that it should be accepted as a permanent 'sacrifice', when we know that there is a spell that can return angels from the Empty (and, thanks to the handprint, we have his blood for it) and that Lucifer was brought back by Chuck in 15x19.  And the idea that Sam, Jack and Dean wouldn't try everything in their power to bring him back is utterly ludicrous.

Cas' confession scene to so closely mirrors 4x01's barn scene that the narrative is crying out for the parallel to be completed by Dean rescuing Cas from the Empty just as Cas rescued Dean from hell.  However, we're never given that narrative closure - just like we are never given the reunions demanded by the scenes of Sam losing Eileen and Charlie losing Stevie.

Chuck:  Okay, so he might not make your list of characters you could ever care about, but my point about his ending is that while it's fitting, for it to really work we also needed Cas to become human, too.  For Chuck, being human is a punishment, but for Cas it would be a reward.  We really needed this balance, otherwise all we have is humanity as the worst thing that could happen to you, which is not exactly a great parting message for the show.  (Also, how precisely is it possible to make him human?)  Not only is being human the worst fate possible, but, specifically, so is growing old and being forgotten.  Again, this is a punishment for Chuck, but it would have been a reward for Dean: growing old when the story (and his own self-loathing) constantly told him that he would die young; and being forgotten, not in a negative sense, but in terms of not being a character in a story any more: remembered fondly by his friends but no longer a legend, just a man living an insignificant little life exactly the way he chooses.  

Dean: Where do I even start.  Let's be clear: ending the story with his death (by any means and in any scenario) was always going to be the absolute worst possible ending for him and for the show.

In 15x19 we have the glorious moment when Chuck calls him the ultimate killer, and Dean (heeding Cas' words from 15x18) says "that's not who I am".  Now, I mean no disrespect to Dean here (because he is, canonically, a genius) but I don't think that he was in any way necessary to the Michael double-cross plot that eventually saw the defeat of Chuck.  Honestly, if he had died in 15x18, then 15x19 could still have played out in exactly the same way.  It's as if he wasn't saved so that he could save the world - he was saved so that he could have this moment of self-realisation.  He was saved so that he could stand up to Chuck (God, and the author, and parallelled with John) and tell him that he's not the person that he tried to force him to be.  

And yet by the next episode, this revelation is entirely forgotten.  He doesn't get to continue his self-actualisation by speaking his truth to Cas.  Instead, 15x20 presents Dean as almost a caricature of himself.  Dean loves pie.  Dean loves his brother.  Dean loves his car.  All of his complexity (present right from Season 1) is stripped away.

Finally free to write his own story, he ends up giving Chuck the ending he always wanted: one dead Winchester - killed, you could argue, by his brother (Sam fails to call for help and instead tells Dean to "go".)  Told by Cas that he's not "Daddy's blunt instrument" and accepting that he's not "the ultimate killer", Dean goes right back to killing (even threatening torture) and following his father's words (in the form of the journal).  

For Dean to die exactly as the story has always told him, and as he's always told himself in his worst moments of self loathing, is brutal and tragic.  What makes it truly appalling is the way in which both Dean and Sam accept his death and say it's "okay".  For Dean to say "always keep fighting" at the very moment when he gives up and when Sam gives up on him is bitterly ironic.  (Interestingly, when Cas said "you have to keep fighting" in his 12x12 death speech, exhorting Sam and Dean to save themselves and leave him behind, Sam replied with "we are fighting.  We're fighting for you, Cas" and Dean followed with "and like you said, you're family.  And we don't leave family behind".)   

Dean has always been the symbol of humanity in Supernatural: he stood for earth against the forces of heaven and hell.  He'd rather live with pain and guilt than exist as a "Stepford bitch in paradise", and yet that's exactly what he becomes, driving mindlessly through Jack's new heaven where everyone is "happy".  Dean previously dismissed heaven's happiness as "Memorex", and after Mary's death he was the only one not consoled by the confirmation that she was in heaven and happy.  Having Dean being content in heaven is utterly out of character.  He's always fought for free will, and in heaven - where there's no agency, where he's cut off from the world - this is the one thing that he does not have.

Eileen: An interesting, complex, kickass character, Eileen deserved so much better than being erased from the storyline.  A Men of Letters legacy, I imagine her working with Sam to share the knowledge contained within the bunker whilst also dismantling the patriarchy, elitism and colonialism of its past.  Her disappearance from the narrative makes absolutely no sense - 15x09, 15x17 and 15x18 confirm just how significant she is to Sam, and yet we never see them reunited or see Sam mourning her death.  The audience's love for Eileen is totally disregarded, too - she's ripped away from us with no further explanation.

Emma: Okay, so she wasn't actually in season 15, but that's sort of my point.  I have a lot to say about Emma, but here I'll just say that her significance has grown massively since Season 7.  The narrative has shifted from Team Free Will being sons to being fathers.  Even if she wasn't brought back, just a mention of her would have been significant.  (I can't stop thinking about the massive potential of a conversation about Emma between Dean and Jack.)  She didn't deserve to be forgotten.  

Season 15 was Supernatural's last opportunity to bring back characters from the past - such as Meg, original Charlie, Crowley, and Bela Talbot - and give them better endings.  Sadly this opportunity was wasted.

Garth: He actually seems to get his happy ending, on several levels.  He finds a family; he finds happiness; he's acknowledged as a hero by the Winchesters, who had previously mocked him.  Dean's words to him about embracing happiness are powerful.  Garth lives as his full, authentic self - monstrosity now included.  It's that monstrosity that's the issue here, though - as werewolves, Garth, Bess and little Sam and Castiel are doomed to go to purgatory when they die.  Mia Vallens said to Jack that "it doesn't matter what you are - it matters what you do", but in this case the opposite is true.  It's hideously unfair, but again the show never acknowledges this.  It would have been simple to change in a line or two - just a quick mention about how purgatory has been fixed, so that only truly monstrous beasts like the leviathan are kept trapped there - but the injustice remains.

Jack:  From his birth, his destiny was either to be the monstrous destroyer or the divine saviour of the world, which is precisely why he should have side-stepped it and found another way.  He deserved to live without the weight of the world on his shoulders.  Instead, he was forced to take on the power of God - and since when has someone suddenly taking on a huge amount of power ever ended well for Team Free Will?  Then, he repeats the exact same pattern set up by Chuck.  First, he abandons his creation by walking away and disappearing off to, in the words of Bobby, "wherever he went".  Like Chuck, he ignores earthly suffering: if he's now omniscient and omnipotent, is he in fact complicit in Dean's death?  Secondly, he's controlling: he remodels Heaven as he sees fit, making it a place where everyone's together and everyone's happy, with its inhabitants given absolutely no choice in the matter.  There's also no reason why Jack had to vanish from the story - Chuck was capable of spending time on Earth.

The mechanics of the bomb plot also irks me no end.  We're told by Death that the bomb will kill Jack.  However, their plan fails, and Jack survives the blast.  In 15x19, Dean tells Chuck that all the work done to turn Jack into a "cosmic bomb" has turned him instead into a "power vacuum."  It makes it seem like a side-effect, and also that "sucking up bits of power" has been charging him up to the point where he's "unstoppable".  He's able to both absorb and appropriate Chuck's power.  However, in 15x17 Adam and Serafina explain that the bomb will create a "metaphysical supernova" that will make Jack into "a living black hole for divine energy" - which suggests that, actually, the bomb worked as intended.  

But if the plan worked, why is Jack still alive?  Billie made it clear that Jack wouldn't survive.  And "nothing can escape" a black hole - so how is Jack able to use Chuck's powers to bring back Earth's population? Besides which, didn't 15x17 reveal that Chuck himself had "orchestrated" the entire thing?  Which makes the theory that Chuck possessed Jack really the only outcome that makes sense.  (Particularly as Serafina talks about Jack making his "vessel" strong.  Jack is a nephil, not an angel - he has a body, not a vessel.  Also, the bomb is made by fusing his soul with his grace - so, the two things that make up Jack, his humanity and his divinity, are annihilated.)  Deliberately making Chuck win, however (with no tease at the end that this might be the case), makes no sense either.  My head hurts.

Kevin: As if he hadn't been treated badly enough by the story already, we find that Kevin hasn't been in Heaven since we last saw him, but rather hell.  He ends up as an untethered ghost, presumably just wandering about for all eternity.  His fate comes courtesy of a bizarre new rule that souls from hell can't go to heaven - when previously both Bobby and John have done exactly that.  Again, just one line telling us that he's now in heaven could have changed his ending.

Michael: Bringing back Adam and Michael was a brilliant move, and this version of Michael was utterly compelling - struggling with his faith in his father after being abandoned, torn between his loyalty to Heaven and his relationship with Adam.  I thought that his handing over of the spell was very similar to Cas' "just so you understand … why I can't help" moment, and it seemed the precursor to Michael becoming an advocate for humanity, even a member of Team Free Will.  However, instead Michael was doomed to play out his father's narrative: killing his brother and repeating the cycle of sibling conflict and trauma that Chuck began when he betrayed Amara.  (And we'll credit Chuck's bad writing with the fact that the battle between Michael and Lucifer that was once predicted to wipe out millions and scorch the globe can now happen in the bunker without so much as a chair being knocked over - and without wires as well.)

Rowena: She seems to be relishing her reign as Queen of Hell, but the way she's so casually condemned is jarring.  Surely her previous good deeds and her final act of self sacrifice would be enough to tip the scales in a heavenly direction?  (It worked for Lily Sunder - another woman who vowed never to be powerless again.)  They could easily have said it was Chuck's fault that she had to remain in hell - but instead it just seems like a foregone conclusion.  She deserved better.

Sam: If we're supposed to believe that having a "normal" life is Sam's idea of writing his own story, why doesn't he do it as soon as Chuck is defeated?   Instead, his suburban "apple pie" life only happens after Dean dies, which makes it seem more of a grief arc than a happy ending.  (Just as he escaped into a self-professed "fantasy" life with Amelia after Dean's death, or when he succumbed to the comfort of a fake married life in Charming Acres after the trauma of losing all the AU hunters).  

The idea that he'd keep hunting for Dean doesn't ring true - Dean had been the one openly craving retirement and domesticity for several seasons.  After all, the idea of Dean as a hunter and Sam as the brother who wants to be normal is Chuck's story.  Dean wasn't the "ultimate killer" that Chuck wanted him to be, and Sam too had been forging his own identity as a leader, a Man of Letters, and a powerful witch.  He'd also found love - and with Eileen, he could be his full, authentic self.  The idea that he would leave her is absurd, as is the idea that he would abandon his entire extended found family, who seem to have no part in his new life.  When Dean returned from purgatory, he was furious that Sam had failed to help Kevin.  Would Sam really do the exact same thing again - walk away from Jody and the girls when they are mourning both Cas and Dean and need his support?  Would he just abandon Rowena's entire witchy collection and leave the huge store of knowledge in the Bunker locked up in the dark?

The Shadow: again, dubious on a list of characters you care about, but hey - all they ever really wanted was to go back to sleep, and can't we all relate to that?  Anyway, they made the list for being one of the most frustrating open endings of the show.  What did it mean for the Empty to be "loud"?  Who is the Shadow, anyway?  Just how did this cosmic entity fit in with the mythology of Chuck and Amara?  It's maddening that the Shadow and the Empty were made central to several seasons only to be suddenly dropped.

The Wayward Sisters: my beloveds. Such a brilliant cast of characters and such wasted potential.  They're an important part of the Winchesters' family and Team Free Will, but, in the end, they're forgotten.  Claire may have gotten her happy ending with the return of Kaia, but this happens off screen.  We never see her reaction to the deaths of Castiel or Dean.

The final few episodes seem to be about stripping away all of the characters except Sam and Dean, so they are completely alone by 15x20. Phrases such as "just us" and "just you and me" and "it's always been you and me" seem to suggest that this is a good thing, but previously the idea of them being isolated and alone has seemed like the worst case scenario (for example in Season 8, when Sam and Dean are forced to give up Amelia and Benny, respectively, or in Chuck's vision of a future in which the brothers lose Eileen and Cas along with Jody and the girls, give up hope, and end up as vampires, killed by their remaining friends). 

Anyway, the whole idea of just Sam and Dean going wherever the road takes them is Chuck's story.  It's on the cover of his books.  By making Chuck the villain, Season 15 itself makes it impossible for a return to this idea to be a satisfying conclusion to the story.

In fact, Supernatural was never about just Sam and Dean.  It was always about family.  Season 1 was about Sam, Dean and John.  Bobby introduced the phrase "family don't end with blood" in Season 3 and Dean coined the phrase "Team Free Will" in Season 4.  It's an ethos that has spread into the fandom, too.  Didn't the SPN Family deserve a finale that celebrated that idea, of banding together, of caring about the whole world, of love being the ultimate expression of free will?

You can't help but pick up on a theme: characters that were forgotten are forgotten again.  Characters who were locked away are locked away again.  The same narratives and the same traumas play out again and again.  No-one escapes their miserable, predestined fate.  It's Chuck's ending.  And it's Chuck's spiteful ending.

It's the ending that kills off its beloved characters, and also destroys their whole world.  The bunker is left in darkness.  Time has moved forward by so much in order to accommodate Sam's natural death that we can't even imagine the ongoing stories of other characters like Garth or the Sioux Falls family (ironic, given the episode's title).

It's the kind of ending you get when a show is cancelled and the writer decides to kill off their characters and wreck their world so that there's no possibility of another network or another writer taking over their story.  (And yet outside of the show, there's no evidence to suggest this - you would think that the ending had been designed to make a reboot impossible, but it has already been talked about.)

If we were not going to get a sense of the world continuing, then we could have been given a more radical and satisfying ending.  We could have had Death collect on their promise to one day reap God.  We could have had a world freed from the supernatural entirely: heaven, hell and purgatory obliterated, and Team Free Will finding peace in life on earth.

Because Chuck has been the author and the narrator the entire time, it makes no sense for the story to continue past the point of his defeat.  (It makes even less sense for that story to revert back to Chuck's ideal narrative.)  So, really we should have been given a more open ending: Team Free Will triumphant over Chuck and their future left open, the author dead and the characters' stories entrusted to the audience.

Instead, in the end, it's a bizarre mix of needlessly closed-down endings (killing off Cas, Sam and Dean, and vanishing Jack) and frustrating open ones (the loud Empty, there being no Death, Kevin wandering, the ambiguous fate of Eileen, Adam, Donna and the AU hunters).  

And the final two episodes are also objectively bad.  The double-cross plot in 15x19 is lame when the resolution of the Chuck storyline should have been profound. (It invites comparisons with the Season 11 finale, which was excellent.) 15x20 feels weirdly empty and flat.  Dean's death is unrealistic; it echoes Sam's death in Season 2 and Dean's in Season 9 (which, if you think about it, would only be possible if Chuck was still writing it), but lacks the emotional punch of either.  Dean's "I'm proud of us," in his Season 9 death scene is so much more powerful than his "I'm proud of you" in the finale.  And let's not even mention that wig.

In conclusion: every single character deserved better.  The actors deserved better.  The audience deserved better.  Because the ending we were given was not the ending that the season, or the entire series, had been building towards.

The ending tries to destroy every good thing that Supernatural has ever given us - vibrant characters, the fight for free will, the value of found family, the power of love - but it fails. Ultimately the characters and themes are too powerful to be contained by that terrible, flimsy ending. So now I've gotten all of that off my chest, I'm going right back to finale denialism.

[carynsilver]

Favorite Fics: Malex Edition

It’s a new year (quite definitively at this point), and a new set of fic recs. Just my small way of saying thank you to the writers who have made the past year, with all its challenges, a little better for me personally. Without the escape of reading, I don’t think I would’ve gotten through the past eleven months, so thank all of y’all for creating (now and in the past) and for sharing your work. You do it for free, and it’s amazing stuff.

If you’re interested, I previously shared my top 10 Stucky, Drarry, Stony, and Darcy Lewis (Wintershock, Shieldshock, and Tasertricks, mostly) fic lists. Today, I’ve finally decided on my top 10 Maxlex fics. So, in no particular order...

my love is a life taker by @jocarthage

If I were making a top 10 fics of all time list, this story would be on it. The breadth and scope of it is truly amazing, as is the writing. There’s world-fixing time travel and an interesting take on our favorite aliens and what could’ve been. Alex as a time agent is both so tragic and also so strong as he begins his journey of self discovery. He’s such an unreliable narrator, and yet also can clearly see so many things. Watching Michael’s growth through the years is just as fascinating as watching Alex travel through time. And it’s juxtaposed with the present so well. This Alex and Michael learn to communicate as they learn about themselves. And the story also taught me a ton about the Middle East and various historical events. I really love this story, and you should definitely read it right now if you haven’t yet.

To Trust Love by @laughsalot3412

This fic is amazing. It takes hurt/comfort to the nth degree. Michael, Isobel, and Max are the only remaining prisoners/subjects in Project Shepherd, and Alex (with the help of Liz, Kyle, and Maria) goes under cover as a guard to get them out. But to do so, first he has to gain their trust--an almost impossible test. The tweaks to the alien abilities and the handprint are interesting. Jesse Manes, as always, is absolutely horrible. But good wins in the end, and the boys are able to figure things out despite the mistakes they make along the way. I mean, trigger warnings for so much in a prison fic with Jesse Manes in it, but it is an awesome story. This author only wrote one RNM fic, but it’s a great one.

From Iraq, with Love by @adiwriting

Alex leaves for basic no way to contact Michael, so he reaches out to him via a YouTube channel. Alex writes years and years’ worth of love songs, hoping maybe Michael will see them and get in touch. The scene when Michael finally sees them is a gut punch in the best way, and the end is so satisfying. A truly excellent story, and I love how music from the heart eases their way into real communication--because, man, that is what these poor boys need.

unexpected tidings by @bestillmyslashyheart

The Vegas fic! Actually, that is not what this fic is about. There is only one scene set in Vegas, and yet that was the one I remembered when I was trying to find the fic again, lol. In this AU, Michael was never reunited with his siblings in Roswell, but he and Alex meet after Alex enlists. They meet three different times in three different states, and eventually fall in love. Then Alex has to come home to Roswell and take care of this little alien problem so his boyfriend can be safe from the horror that is Jesse Manes. One of the best things about this story is the past/present narrative structure. Only a really good writer can tell a successful story out of chronological order, and @bestillmyslashyheart really succeeds. Check out her other work, as well, such as A Simple Life (but with aliens).

Shadow Work by @myrmidryad

This fic has stellar world building. Alex and Michael are shades--people who work banishing hauntings, curses, etc. The scientific way the supernatural elements are approached is so interesting, as well as the different ways humans and aliens perceive them. Alex is a total unreliable narrator just because of how the haunt is affecting him, but he still gets the job done. This is a world you can just sink into. Totally immersive, and yet it works so well with the alien mythology we already have. And the conclusion to the haunt mystery is so satisfying. Such a great story!

Lovin’ you is a gift tonight (Lovin’ you for all of my life) by @bellakitse

Michael turned his cheek when Alex tried to kiss him, and then Alex and Rosa ran off to NYC before anything else could happen. Michael thinks of Alex as the one who got away, and then he runs into him when he’s stuck at the airport in Denver, trying to get home to Roswell for Christmas. Their reunion in the airport is fluffy and amazing, just a pleasure to read. And then they end up back in Roswell and all the other stuff comes into play in a really satisfying, let’s-deal-with-it-as-adults-instead-of-children kind of way. Ah, so good!

scream in there by thepredatorywasp

I’ll be honest, this one starts a little rough emotionally, but man, Alex and Michael really earn their happily ever after here. It is worth it. And then we get River! I enjoy a good kid!fic, and River the little alien found in a pod who gloms onto Alex and never lets go is amazing! River is my favorite kiddo that I’ve ever read in a Malex story.

truth (to the people we love) by @lambourngb

This is probably the shortest fic on my rec list. I am biased toward the long ones, I know. But man this one packs a punch. Alex recorded a goodbye message when he was overseas, and he has to tell it not to auto send every week. Then he is kidnapped for ten days... I don’t want to spoil too much, but just read it. It also plays with the narrative structure. And if you like this one, definitely check out @lambourngb‘s other stories. collect the bad habits and Vows are also great reads!

I Know Nothing Stays the Same by @aewriting

This is one of those stories that sticks in your head. It is awful (emotion-wise, not writing-wise) and wonderful all wrapped up together in the best way. Alex and Michael run away after the shed incident and go into hiding for five years. This is the past storyline. There’s also a present and a future. The ending of this story was so gorgeous, I don’t want to spoil it, but I remember it all the time when I think of Malex. Lovely and poignant. This is another version of this couple that <i>earn</i> their happiness together. And if you want even more in this ‘verse, the very talented @andrea-lyn (who also has a ton of great Malex stories) wrote a coda called There’s More Room in a Broken Heart.

Send Me Home by @litwitlady

I waffled back and forth about which story would fill the final slot. It’s always so hard to choose when there are so many excellent ones out there, but I had to have one of @litwitlady‘s stories on the list. She has quite a few excellent ones, but Send Me Home is my favorite. Michael the baseball player is both compelling and also heartwarming in his softer life. This is another fic where Alex is a musician, this one an actual country music star. So, it’s a sports fic and a celebrity romance, in addition to being a Malex RNM story. it is a WiP, which I sometimes hesitate to rec, but there’s only one more chapter to go, so I feel pretty safe about it. And she has lots of other stories you should check out. I’m fond of the Reunion series, as well.

So, that’s it for this post. Thanks again to all the amazing fanfic authors and their awesome work. I’ve read so many great Malex fics lately. On this list or not, I appreciate you guys!

[undertaker1827]

Hey all!! This is a part two of the story I wrote where Grell’s s/o (Ciel’s mother figure) dies, which was requested in the comments of the original fic. If you haven’t read the first one, please do that as this makes no sense by itself. Also, I’ve reverted back to female pronouns for Grell in this one aaand guess which mortician rocks up 😁 Can be seen as Grell x Undertaker (I do like that one myself) but that’s not actually the idea. And finally (I swear I’ll shut up in a minute) the method used to stop a panic attack is a genuine one, it works very well.

❗️Warnings; heavy angst all the way through, death, blood, a panic attack, spoilers for chapters 140, 141 and 149.

Masterlist

-

Grell swallowed hard as she turned away from William, striding out into the corridor as fast as possible. Only a few reapers gave her a second glance, but she didn’t run into anyone she knew personally, so for that she was grateful. She left through reception and made her way back to her apartment, swapping the coat she usually wore for a red trench. It was slightly too big for her, so she wound it around herself like a cocoon, tying the fabric belt in a big loop then leaving once more.

The crimson reaper - ex reaper now? She wasn’t really sure - started walking around London. She had no aim or purpose, just needing to not sit still. Her hands were curled into fists and stuffed deep in the pockets of the coat, breath hanging in pockets in the frigid air behind her, street lamps only doing so much to push back the darkness of fallen night. Grell wasn’t watching where she was going, head low and eyes sore. The tears had stopped, but she knew how little it would take for them to start again, even though she had already cried so much. She felt an awful hollowness, left both by your parting and from the exhaustion that comes from truly crying your heart out.

So lost was she in her thoughts that she walked straight into something - someone - and tripped over a cobblestone. She managed to rip her hands out of her pockets to break her fall about halfway down, only she never met the floor. A pair of strong arms wrapped around her, one around her shoulders and the other at her waist then hauled her upright and into a firm chest. The other person held her still for a moment, as if ensuring she was now steady on her feet, before pulling back a bit to see her face. A bout of maniacal laughter quickly drew her attention once more to be met with silver bangs rather than eyes and a mortician’s black robes.

“Well, if it isn’t the reaper who was playing Madam Red’s butler! We meet again...” He trailed off into a giggle and stepped back, taking in everything Grell’s features and body language were telling him.

“Undertaker..?” She murmured, suddenly at a loss for what to do. She should be utterly repelled by him, right? What he did back on the ship was unforgivable for a reaper, and he certainly was one even if he did quit dispatch. In fact, now she had too, didn’t that make them kind of the same? She didn’t know, too tired to work it out. A nail tapping against her forehead made her blink rapidly and focused her gaze once again on the grey hair.

“You don’t look all that grand now though, do you? What’s happened to you, I wonder..”

Those few words were enough to send Grell’s mind careening back to the warehouse, the To-Die list, your crumpled body and your blood staining the concrete crimson. The blood pounding in her own ears and the sound of that wretched death scythe dragging on the rough floor, the look on William’s face.

You monster. You knew what they meant to me when you gave me that list.

A fresh wave of nausea took over the reaper’s body and she screamed in agony, tears streaming from her eyes and breathing heavy and erratic, yet still she clutched at her chest, unable to breath, unable to think -

The mortician saw the warning signs, thought process calmly identifying panic attack, the supplying him with chamomile, lemon. They had crossed paths right outside the parlour anyway, so by the timeUndertaker had half dragged, half carried the other reaper inside he doubted she even realised they had moved. He snapped her out of it by shoving a lemon in her mouth, engaging the automatic reflex of biting down and the resulting horrible taste preventing her brain from continuing to panic.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” She yelled, launching herself at the older reaper only to stop halfway through. “How did you do that?” Undertaker just grinned and brandished the lemon at her.

“Forces your brain to focus.” Grell gave a non-commital hum but said nothing further, eyes becoming slightly glazed in thought. Undertaker was no fool; he knew what that type of crying meant. She’d lost someone incredibly important to her, which was a feeling he knew only too well. It was fatal for a reaper to involve themselves with humans. Since she was here anyway, the mortician made some chamomile tea and offered her a cup, surprised to find she accepted it. She must have been too exhausted to retaliate.

The pair sat for a while in silence, though Undertaker did eventually ask what Grell was doing in London. He did so idly, as if asking about the weather so as not to pressure her.

“I quit.” That certainly drew the older reaper’s attention, the small movement of his head so sharp that his bangs shifted enough the reveal part of a glowing chartreuse eye. It was enough to set an alarm bell in Grell’s head, something Othello had said about her not being able to win against him one on one.

“Quit what?”

“Dispatch. I deserted, just like you.” She gave a small, humourless scoff. “Suppose I know now how you felt.” The mortician let out a silent breath, his own mind straining and wanting to wander.

“Being seduced by the lives of humans is always a mistake for one of us,” he murmured softly, the feeling of dusky blue hair under his fingertips and a gentle, loving voice in his ear suddenly far too real.

“They-” Grell’s voice caught, “they wanted me to… to reap-” She gave a single, suppressed sob, rubbing the heels of her hands into her eyes and trying to take calming breaths. “I couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t do it. But Will knew. He knew and he did nothing!” She rested her elbows on her knees and dropped her head into her arms, sighing once more. She barely registered the sound of movement as the other reaper sat down next to her on the coffin, though she couldn’t help but tense and turn her head when she felt his arms around her once more.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he muttered, voice dropping to the softer one she remembered from the Campania. Too tired to care if she was making a mistake or not, Grell allowed herself to be slowly pulled into a tighter hug, wrapping her arms around the mortician in return. Neither spoke for a long while, though she had allowed her eyes to close when she felt his chin come to rest on top of her head. “Was there a reason you came to me?” He asked at last, voice quiet in the predawn stillness.

“It wasn’t intentional,” the other reaper whispered back, “I was just blindly walking. Coincidence, maybe.”

“Maybe,” he hummed back, “though I have a proposition for you. What would you do if I told you there might be a way to bring them back?” Grell moved so quickly Undertaker found even he couldn’t easily follow it. Her head knocked back into his jaw and he huffed in annoyance, though said nothing of it when he saw her face. Pure, unadulterated desperation was ingrained into her every feature, though the look turned gloriously murderous with her next words.

“If you’re lying to me, even in the slightest way-”

“I can swear to you, in full confidence, that I’m not. Look here.” He stood and walked over to another coffin lying horizontally on the floor, gently taking hold of the lid and pulling it back. Grell’s eyes widened at the sight of the boy laying inside, body suspended in fluid and attached to medical equipment far too advanced for the Victorian era of the human world. She met Undertaker’s gaze once more, who was now starting to smirk. “Go get them back.”

[fandom-thingies]

My Complicated Feelings Toward JK Rowling

I think everyone who’s read Harry Potter and likes to talk has written something like this by now. It makes sense, right? She wrote possibly the most influential book series to come out in the last century. For me and many others, those books are an unforgettable part of our childhoods, and it hurts for the person who took us on such a journey of magic and wonder to be so unmagical herself.

So, here’s my take.

I think the thing I hate most about JK Rowling is how close she came to greatness.

There’s a reason her books became so popular, after all. For all her faults, (and there are many) she’s an amazing writer.

Every one of her characters feel like they could walk off of the page at any time and into your life. 

Dudley Dursley with his absorption of how his parents treat Harry and how his friends treat him, with his slow growth throughout the books into a person beyond who he was raised to be.

Molly Weasley with her overbearing mother henning, sometimes harmful but oh so clearly coming from a place of love, and her complete willingness to adopt any child that stands still long enough for her to do so. (Except Fleur)

Narcissa Malfoy with her belief in the horrible things she’s doing, without that stopping her from being entirely willing to do anything for her child.

Sirius Black with his tendency to unintentionally echo the sentiments he was raised with, and the tragedy of him losing his chance to ever truly grow as a person after being thrown in Azkaban for twelve years and then dying so soon after, and his complete, unconditional love for Harry.

I could write essays on any of them, and my point is that while JK’s treatment of certain issues and characters makes me want to hate Harry Potter, her characterization itself is both consistent and magnificently human.

Her world, too, is beautiful.

I first read Harry Potter before I turned eleven, and I was one of many across the nation who awaited my letter with eager anticipation. 

Can you blame me? The world she created filled so many children with wonder, made so many of us want so badly for magic to be real, to be ours- 

It was beautiful, and I hate her for what she could have been.

She had this fully realized system of prejudice that canonically created genocidal maniacs and put them in power every two generations or so, and she had this very realistic way of writing horribly flawed people that pronounces them as people without exonerating them for the awful things she’d have them do, and I can’t help feeling like “the horrors of war”, as well as she wrote it, wasn’t the story her world deserved.

But that’s a big idea to tackle, and I think it will be tackled best if I start small. I’ve spoken now of the beauty of her world, of her characters. Now I’ll speak of what marrs it.

Like I said, I want to start small.

So, let’s talk about the house elves.

TL;DR? Hermione was right. They’re indoctrinated from birth into believing the only thing they’re good for is housework, as well as being raised to abhor any elf who chooses to do otherwise. It’s a neat little self perpetuating system that bears absolutely no similarity in ideology to the mythology JK built it off of, and as such loses the aspect of choice that’s so significant to brownies.

Add to that the socially acceptable abuse, and you’ve got something that looks far more similar to slavery than it does little fairies who come to clean your home and get mad if pay them because they’re doing it as a favor.

And that’s why it’s so concerning, when JK brushes Hermione’s campaigning off in canon so casually.

It’s honestly hard to say when I started to be leery of JK Rowling, except that it was several years before the TERF scandal occurred. I think this was probably one of the earlier areas, though.

The first time I remember wondering if Harry Potter’s greatnesses were in spite of her intentions, rather than because of them, though, wasn’t the house elves.

It was, rather, a different contentious issue in the fandom, and one I’ve always fallen quite firmly to one side of, as someone who’s been bullied myself.

The first time I remember being suspicious of JK’s beliefs was when I realized she didn’t write Snape with the intent for him to be a villain.

Snape is not a person anyone in the fandom seems to be able to agree on. Some see him as a flat, cartoony villain, while some see him as a tortured soul who only did all those terrible things because he was hurting inside, don’t you see? 

Personally, I drew the line at him being a child’s boggart, as well as the time he attempted to kill Neville’s toad, Trevor, because seriously; what the fuck.

It had always been my belief that while him being obsessed with loving Lily motivated him to work on the side of good, it was more like Narcissa’s willingness to betray her cause for her son than anything else, being a sympathetic trait without absolving his cruelty.

Then I realized that a bunch of people (likely including JK) view Narcissa similarly to how they view Snape, seeing both as people who do bad but are good, rather than people who do good but are bad, and I honestly don’t know what to say to y’all.

You know having good traits doesn’t make a person good, right? Being capable of affection doesn’t absolve people of cruelty or make it your responsibility to forgive them and try to get them to change, it just tells them that they can do bad things without being punished for it. 

Do you guys need an abuse hotline? 

Anyway, that’s when I stopped liking JK, since I’ve been bullied myself and seeing her treat such a horrible bully as a good person kinda soured me on her. I’m not mad at her for letting her bullies grow and change- I love Draco’s and Dudley’s character arcs. I’m just mad at her because unlike those two, Snape is an adult and she kinda wrote it like forgiving him was an expectation of Harry, rather than a personal choice (and not an easy one either! Forgiving bullies is hard and it’s not always healthy!)

I’m getting off topic, but I genuinely believe that discussing this kind of thing is important, so I’m leaving that in.

Getting back to what this is actually about, I’m the kind of person who sees potential in things, often before I see the work itself, (it’s why I write fanfiction) and Harry Potter has so much potential it hurts, because so much of it is just wasted.

I said, earlier, that “the horrors of war” wasn’t the story best suited to this world, and I stand by that.

The first reason I believe that is because I don’t think that the black and white morality this kind of narrative often creates was well suited to JK’s writing style. JK has a tendency to put her characters in boxes of “good” or “bad” and as someone who doesn’t really believe in inherent goodness or evil, this will always feel unrealistic to me.

Because in the end, it’s JK’s minor villains, the ones not directly involved with Voldemort’s war, that really shine.

My favorite villains in the series were Umbridge, the Dursleys, Draco Malfoy, and Cornelius Fudge, because they were the villains who felt real, who felt like flawed people making flawed decisions because we’re all fundamentally products of our environment-

These are the villains who stuck with me, who I still want to take and shake because they were the kind of cruelty we’ve all faced.

Voldemort, as the main villain of the story, would have been more powerful if he’d been an amplified version of these people. In fact, the story would have been better in general if Fudge or Dumbledore had been the villain, because the problem with Voldemort is that unlike the good villains in this story, who feel real because we’ve all met people like them, Voldemort is and will always be larger than life.

A genocidal maniac is a villain few of us have faced societally, and one none of us have faced directly.

Also, rather than being a worse version of Umbridge or Fudge, Voldemort is more akin to a worse version of Snape. He’s a tortured soul who does bad things because bad things were done to him, rather than being cruel through his choices, his own agency.

That’s the first reason why “the horrors of war” wasn’t the best choice of a narrative for this world.

The second is that I don’t think JK sees anything wrong with her muggle hating characters.

She clearly thinks killing muggles is wrong, of course. She’s not that bad.

But, well, the muggle characters in Harry Potter are consistently kind of awful.

First there’s the Dursleys, selfish, entitled, egotistical, and cruel to anyone different from them. Then there’s Snape’s muggle father, who was horribly abusive, as well as cruel to anything different from him.

Then there’s the muggle prime minister, who despite being an important figure, is left completely out of the loop for anything concerning wizards, pretty much only used when the ministry needs the muggle news to say or do a certain thing, like when Sirius Black was declared a criminal.

There’s also the family at the quidditch world cup, of whom who only meet the patriarch, a somewhat stupid man who remarks uncomprehendingly on the oddness of wizards trying to assimilate into muggle society, a man who is canonically obliviated ten times a day.

And that’s it, that’s all the muggle characters I can remember. Aside from the Dursleys, none of them are given more than a page or so of screentime, and none of them do anything significant.

No, wait, I did actually forget two.

Hermione’s parents, who are obliviated and sent to Australia when the war starts, because the only thing they could ever do in a war is be victims.

Muggles in Harry Potter are consistently stupid, ineffectual, and cruel to anyone different from them.

Out of the entire massive cast of Harry Potter, there are few enough muggles that I can list them all off the top of my head without googling and the only muggle in the story ever given the all important chance to be kind is Dudley Dursley, who is taken out of the story the moment he stops being an awful person.

I’m sure you see the problem.

The issue with Harry Potter is that JK acts like the problem is solved when muggles are no longer being actively persecuted, when in reality that’s only the beginning of solving the prejudice that plagues her world.

Voldemort is frequently called “wizard Hitler” and I think that’s more accurate than people realize, because as with Hitler, people easily see the problem with Voldemort committing genocide, and they’re fine with working to stop that, but the moment they’re asked to examine their own biases, their own small cruelties and exclusions, the ten thousand cuts they’ve inflicted with their own hands…

The moment people are asked to examine themselves, to look close at the mirror and point to what allowed someone like Voldemort to gain a following in the first place, they turn away and go back to turning a blind eye to the fact that if you don’t address the societal issues that made him gain a following in the first place, there’ll just be another when it’s been a few years and people have forgotten.

In the end, Grindlewald is wizard Hitler. Voldemort and the death eaters are wizard neo nazis.

I’m not Jewish, though, so I’ll let them be the ones to expand further upon this, as many have.

My point here is that JK’s story would have been more powerful if it had been about addressing the issues that underpin the death eaters, rather than killing their leader and acting as if that’ll solve anything.

JK Rowling is antisemetic, racist, and a TERF, among other things, and while I’m glad it shows in her work as little as it does, it does show, and I’m not going to cover that in this because a thousand other people have covered it better than I ever could.

Suffice to say, I’m nonbinary, and I’m glad I was disillusioned with her before I knew she was prejudiced directly against me, because loving her before she said the things she said and did the things she did would have hurt.

The fact that her world shows so clearly the consequences of her beliefs, even in the context of a prejudice that doesn’t exist in our own world…

I guess she’s always been too good a writer for her own good, in the end.

[opossumanonymous]

Dead Silent part 2

Warnings: blood but nothing excessive

Izuku somethings wrong here but I can't figure out what..

W̴̬͈͊̓͛h̵̛̳̲̪͓̹͆y̸̖̖̟̯͌̉͛̓͜ ̷̙̖̇̄͜d̷͍͔̭̭̊̌͠i̷̧̲̝̫͚̒͑̔d̶̦͙͆̏̆̀ṅ̷̛͇̦̈́͝'̷̘̾̎t̵̮̩̩̝͂̆͠ ̷͚͐̕ý̵͎̣̬̳̜̎̆̅ȏ̷̢̮͉̤͚̀̓͂͝u̸̺͖̍̿͂͝͝ ̷̼̟͚̇̄͛ȓ̸͕̟̉ȕ̵͔̜̺̥̮̈̊n̸̢̳̝̗̣̐̅͑̕?̷̡͈͍̊̎̍̚

Ahh well Izukus probably okay....

*******************************************************

"T̶̙̃h̵̖͊a̷̠̓n̵̙̏k̴͔͋ ̷̙͘y̸̧͐o̵̬̓ȕ̵͉ ̷̟̓f̸̦̈o̷̳͊r̵̦̎ ̸͉̑ĺ̴͉e̸͕̚t̴͕̿t̵̮͛ȉ̴̫ṉ̴̋g̸̞͊ ̸̪͑ŭ̸̻š̸͕ ̸̳͘i̵̠̐n̴̩̄ ̶̹̈́l̵͕͑i̶͇͝t̶̪͝t̸̹̊l̶͉̆ȇ̴͖ ̷̞̋ọ̵̍n̵̯̊e̷͔͘."

Blood poured out of his mouth, nose, and ears in thick red rivers.

He blacked out feeling himself fall before he sat up again.

His eyes wide as he frantically looked around his room.

Wait what? His room?

But he passed out at the front door he shouldn't be in his room....

He was though, the various All Might posters staring at him with the heros iconic phrase "I Am Here" printed on it proved he was in his room.

Looking down he noticed there was no blood on his pajamas not even a drop.

Touching his face there was only a little eye crust, no blood to his relief, which he wiped off.

Maybe it was all just a nightmare, a horribly realistic nightmare but just a nightmare nonetheless.

He breathed out and in trying to catch his breath again telling himself it was all just a dream.

Wiping the sweat off his brow he let out a little laugh at himself for being so dramatic.

There was no monster it was only a dream.

Knọ̷̮̻͈̰̟͓̬̪̙̞̲͈̖̞͍̹̖͔̦͎̤̄̀̇̀͌̉̀̐͐͂̀̊͐̌̐́̐͆̕̚͜c̶̢̛͚̟͙͎̻͓̩̘̩̩͙̱͖̞̖͉͔͈̟͈͙̩͍̜͙͚͐̉͆͆͗̉̏͒͘͜͠͝ͅͅk̸̢̧̡̧̛̲̬̞͈̳̬̮̳͖̫̼̦̩̣̩͍͍̲͚̗͙͚͈̔̇̍̇̋͐̌̈́͑́̚͜͝ͅ

A knock at his door nearly made him fall off his bed in shock. As his mother poked her head in, green hair a mess as she smiled at him.

"Izuku come on breakfast is ready!"

Nodding at her he watched as she left to give the teen some time to collect himself. After a minute he got up and left his room heading down the stairs as he heard his mom call for him again.

"I'm coming mo-"

He started but stopped as he looked at the pale blue haired teen sitting at the kitchen table playing with a DS.

"Mom who's that?" He asked confused, the boy now looked up his red eyes piercing as he held the DS with his pinkys up.

"What don't recognize me green bean?" The boy spoke in a raspy voice like he hadn't had water in years.

With his cracked pale skin,a mole under his lip and bluish white hair that touched his shoulders he looked like....Tenko?

B̸u̶t̶ ̸t̸h̷a̸t̶'̶s̷ ̸n̶o̸t̸ ̷p̵o̸s̵s̸i̵b̸l̶e̸ ̷T̶e̸n̵k̴o̴s̸ ̵d̷e̵a̵d̵...

"Oh Tomura sweetie you know how disoriented Izu gets in the morning."

I̶z̴u̶k̶u̶ ̶s̶a̴w̶ ̴h̵i̶m̷ ̷i̵n̸ ̶h̵i̵s̶ ̵c̵o̵f̸f̵i̴n̸ ̶a̶t̷ ̵h̸i̵s̶ ̶f̷u̶n̶e̶r̵a̴l̷ ̵h̴e̴'̶s̴ ̸d̶e̷a̸d̸.̵ ̷

Shrugging the boy continued to play his DS while scratching his neck, a nervous habit he never could quit.

̷H̸o̶w̵ ̵i̴s̸ ̸h̴e̷ ̶h̵e̸r̴e̴?̶

He looked at his mom her slim figure still cooking breakfast while she spoke to Tenko Tomura, who gave small answers mainly focused on his game.

S̷l̵i̵m̴ ̷b̶u̶t̴ ̵w̷a̷s̷n̴'̶t̵ ̴s̷h̴e̸ ̸a̶l̶w̸a̷y̷s̵ ̶c̴u̶r̸v̶y̵?̶

Still confused he walked into the kitchen and sat down, not listening to their conversation.

W̸̺͠h̵̥͌y̶̩̽ ̵͕̃d̵̤̅í̶͓d̵̜͝n̶̳̈́'̷̗̌t̶̗̏ ̷̖͒t̵̺̉h̴̜́e̴̮̎ ̶̺́f̵̧̕l̴̰͐o̶͚̚o̸̪̍r̷̊͜ ̷͕̃b̵̰̎o̶̜̿a̷̗̅r̷̳̍d̸̬̽ ̶͎̍c̶̫̈́ŕ̴͜ė̴̜a̴͉̍ḳ̵̒

Soon he heard a distinct ding sound come from the microwave.

I̴̻̋t̶̹̊ ̸̱̕w̵̟͝a̷̩̒s̷͓̅ ̴͍͘b̷̺̎r̴̡̓ò̴͖k̶̗̈́e̸͕͋ń̸͓.̷̺̚ ̶̗̐I̷̡̕t̷͓̉ ̷͚̾w̷̻̄a̴̺͠s̵̮̆ ̷͓̇b̵̯̔r̵̠͘o̷̫̒k̷̂͜e̶̮̕n̵̠̐.̵̺͂ ̷̛͚Í̵̦t̶͕̚ ̵̜͑w̴͇̃a̶͕͒s̵̳͝ ̷̺͛b̶̘̂ṛ̵́o̸̯͐k̶̲̔e̸͓͋n̵̜͑.̶̤͊

"Oh your fathers coffee is done Izu can you get that for me while I finish breakfast?"

Still dazed he nodded and got up to get the coffee passing by the garbage can where an awful smell hit his nose.

Looking down in the can he saw some ramen that looked old and moldy sitting in the trash.

He would need to take out the trash later how did he let it get this bad?

W̶̲̓á̸ͅs̶͔̃n̶̼̾'̴̟̿ṯ̴͋ ̴̻̓h̴̤͊e̷̦͒ ̴̙͆c̵͓̎o̸̬͛ọ̴̇k̶̖͒î̵̗ṇ̸̎g̴͍̈ ̶̳̏t̴̃ͅh̵̦͝ä̵̘́t̷̗͗ ̸̩̈́l̶̺̒å̵͜s̴̩̕t̵̖͛ ̸̖͐n̸̮̚i̷̖͛g̵̢͝h̵̗̆ṯ̴̊ ̷̞̆w̶̙͒h̵͓̃y̶̼͆ ̷͉̓i̵̫̍š̷̰ ̴̫́ị̶̔t̸͛͜ ̸͍͐m̵̐͜ö̸̥́l̸͚̍d̵̠̀ỷ̶͎?̶͍̆

Opening the microwave he grabbed the coffee mug feeling like something was wrong. But he just can't put his finger on it.

Looking to the fridge he noticed a taped paper usually reserved for writing the grocery list, but now it just had scribbles all over it.

His ears began to ring as he focused on the only word not scribbled off.

His eyes watered as cold fear filled his body as he stood there frozen.

The only thing left unscribbled being-

"Hey little brother you okay?"

M̵̝̺̅e̵̼̫͐̈́a̸̝̿t̸̥̾̆

A hand landed on his shoulder causing Izuku to jump bringing him out of his thoughts. Looking up he saw Tomura stood next to him no longer playing his DS a concerned look on his face.

"Oh y- yeah I'm fine just a little out of it, my homework kept me up pretty late last night." Izuku said giving him a reassuring simle.

Even if he didn't belive himself hopefully Tomura wouldn't press any further.

He felt scared and he really didn't know why, man that dream must have really messed him up.

Tomura nodded before patting his back and sitting at the table again Izuku following soon after sitting next to him.

A peace settled over the kitchen as his mom layed out breakfast for everyone.

"What is that delicious smell?" A deep voice spoke from the door way of the kitchen where a tall man stood.

All the hair on Izukus body stood up something in him screaming.

R̷̟̘̜̋͑̓̌̚͝ư̴̝̈̈̔͑̎͋͒̈̆n̵̢͈̹̺͓̿

But there was no danger so why did he feel like he needed to run and hide?

He had short curly hair, red eyes like Tomura, and a strong build.

Izuku had never seem this man before just who was he?

"Hizashi there you are I was just about to call you come sit breakfast is ready!" His mom spoke cheerfully.

Ṯ̸̈h̷̤̽ã̴̲t̵̞̄ ̷͔̿w̶̺͗a̴̛̩s̶͌ͅǹ̶̻'̶̧̈́t̴̡͝ ̴̪̽ḣ̴͍i̵̛̥ŝ̴̬ ̴̘̓n̴̩̂ã̸̻m̶͕͌e̶͎͒ ̶̠̄i̵̛̙t̶̗̅ ̷̘̋ẉ̴̍a̵͈͂s̶̨̓-̶̮̓

"Looks good darling thankyou." He replied as he gave his mom a peck. Was this man a new boyfriend his mom didn't tell him about?

I̷̻͝t̷͈͠ ̶̭̎w̴͖̒a̵̔͜s̸͙͑-̶͚͌

"Oh it was nothing your welcome honey!" His mom said sitting down between Tomura and an empty seat.

Everyone but Izuku seemed familiar with this Hizashi but Izuku didn't know! He just didn't know what he was missing!

A̸̞̋l̸̻̓-̶̣̀

He walked on the creaky floor board, not a single sound coming from the weak wood of the board.

Ả̵͖l̵̳̒l̶̋͜-̵̤̅

Sitting down in the empty chair between Izuku and his mom at the table the man looked to the small boy.

Ȃ̷̹ļ̶̏l̵̗̐ ̸̣͘f̴̭͠-̸͈̈́

"Is that my coffee son?" Hizashi asked in a sweet voice.

A̵͚͊l̵͎̈́l̷̰̇ ̵̪͘f̶͍̅ó̷͔r̸͖̄-̸͉́

Looking down Izuku noticed he still held the coffee mug. That's right he was still holding his dad's coffee and this man was his dad.

A̴̖͘l̸̫͝l̷̥͒ ̶̨̈f̵͓̆ô̷̜r̸̼̽ ̴̡͝O̸̘͛-̶͙̚

Handing the mug to his dad he smiled finally remembering the man. His mom was right he really does get disoriented in the morning.

His father thanked him as Izuku looked at his breakfast for the first time.

A̵̙͑l̴̰̅l̸̙͛ ̶̪̈́f̴͉̆ó̵̰r̷͔̽ ̷̠͆O̶̝̍ṋ̶͠-̴̕͜

A bowl of white rice with a single uncooked egg while on the plate next to it sat a large peice of meat still bloody and raw.

"Eat it all son I don't want to see a single bite left on your plate."

Said his father with a too wide too toothy grin that just stretched too far to be human.

A̷̱̋l̴̖͂l̸̫͆ ̸̈͜f̸̲̄ȏ̶̹r̵̺̈́ ̸̭̂O̸͇͝n̵̙͘e̸̲̋

His mouth watered as he nodded beginning to eat the raw meat first.

""̶̞̋Ĝ̶͍o̷̎͜o̵͎͋ď̵͇ ̴̻̃b̸̟̃o̶͍͊y̶̛̠ ̸̯̆ḙ̶̃a̷̪͠t̷̘͝ ̴̨̇û̸ͅp̶͚͝.̷͜͝"̶̱̂."

The family of four ate their breakfast in front of the window where a pepper plant wilted.

Outside the sun rose into the sky over a decaying garden full of rotten tomatoes and cucumbers.

Nothing croaked or chirped that morning the air still and crisp.

Everything was silent outside the cottage only the sounds of a family feeding could be heard.

******************************************************

All Mights still a pro hero with one for all but he's also hunting AFO who is not a super villain or even human.

Meanwhile First is trying to save any unfortunate souls that come in contact with his brother while trying to help all might find and kill AFO.

Some timeline stuff

•  First Tomura gets his quirk late like teen years late.

• Then he dies in the fire after decaying his family on accidentbecausehe thought he was quirkless.

• Next AFO finds his soul and says welp he's mine now.

• Sees Tomura being all close with auntie Inko and lil Izu in his memories and says welp their mine now too.

• Inko decided to move to the country after finding out Izu was being bullied for being quirkless.

• They live there peacefully for a year or two before AFO pulls up.

• AFO really said perfect time to suprise adopt my new son and suprise marry my new wife.

• No body snatching here just making his new fam into what he is because he'd never truly change them.

• Just there bodies so they can never leave and memories to include him.

[pebblysand]

It’s me again! You gave such a thorough reply that I wanted to first say thank you and second elaborate on devastating and maybe also expound on why i love castles so much.

So honestly what i most appreciate in post-dh hp fanfics is the exploration of what happens after the war- particularly the trauma and healing process. I’ll be frank in that I’m probably projecting my own mental health issues but that’s neither here nor there.

Castles strikes me as particularly interesting and unique because it delves into Ginny’s trauma from the war as much as Harry’s. Very often in other post-dh fics we see that Ginny is the stable one, she is Harry’s anchor, they show her understanding and forgiving him without question. Which I understand and love but your fic sheds a new light on other possibilities. When I say devastating i mean the internal turmoil, the truth that recovery and healing and growth are agonizing processes. (This is me projecting again, that last three years have been A Lot). And i really appreciate that, personally and narratively. The ordeal of healing and healing alongside people you love and at the same time hurting and being hurt by those same people, and the harsh reality that none of this is linear is something that I just find so compelling in your writing.

Man that’s the most coherent I’ve been in a review in AGES - not just feral screaming. Needless to say, I am very very excited for your update and I will literally wait however long it takes, because you can’t rush genius.

Aw thank you so much for your kind words. I'm glad this fic is resonating with you. This is going to be long, so buckle up under the cut.

Thanks again for what you've said, I truly appreciate it. Without blowing my own horn too much, I will say that castles does seem to "speak" in that way to a lot of people in terms of trauma and healing, which as a writer is immensely flattering. I think as authors, all we ever want to do (or at least all I've ever wanted to do) is to write things that are faithful to human emotions and human experiences (as Sally Rooney puts it, we want to write books about "people"). When we get that right that's honestly the most rewarding thing in the world.

To tell you the truth, though, I never really set out to write about that. To give you a little bit of backstory on Castles, it's a story that's been more of less brewing in my head since I was 14 years old, which is when DH came out. I remember sitting there at the end of it and even then I couldn't stop thinking about the 'what now?' question. Obviously there is the epilogue (and I will come back to that in a bit) but I always had a question mark drawn on the direct aftermath of the battle. I think most HP fans have their own little corner of obsession, right? Like, some people are obsessed with Marauders, some with Next-Gen, some with the Death Eater side of the fight. The Post-War world has always been mine.

I believe that the reason for that, as much as I hate to admit it, is that as humans, when something bad happens to us, we have a very easy way out: death. I'm obviously not trying to encourage anyone out here to kill themselves and if anyone who reads this is having thoughts along this line, please seek help, but the truth of the matter is that in the human experience, death is always a possibility. We could choose it, embrace it, and end our own suffering. Yet, like Harry at the end of DH, most of us don't. For the most part, we tend to hang onto to life. Because, truth be told, it's full and wonderful and deserves to be lived, despite the fact that, objectively speaking, it's bloody hard. And, as a writer, that's the space I want to be in. I want to understand and describe why we make that choice, every day, to get up and carry on, rather than giving up. I find that absolutely fascinating. I'm not a writer for the sensational stuff (some people do that much better than me), I want to write the quiet and the silence and the dirt and the blood that's dried and the grief and the powering through and the not giving up. To me, choosing life despite trauma is the epitome of bravery which, as a Gryffindor, is probably the character trait I value most in people.

Obviously, from a narrative perspective, this interest of mine lands itself to a post-war exploration very well. There's an old interview of JKR where she says she insisted on the epilogue being included at the end of book seven (even though she knew it was going to piss people off) because she wanted to show that they made it through. That, as I put it in Castles, 'They lived, for better or for worse.' And, in that interview, she talks more specifically about soldiers and PTSD, and says that 'getting over that kind of war, that's the hard part.' I remember watching that interview and thinking: yes, exactly. And, that's the thing about the epilogue. It's not so much about the content of it, the who-ends-up-with-who rather than the symbolism of it. It's not only about the fact that they fought in a war and won it, it's about the fact that they fought another war afterwards, a quiet one with the world they were trying to rebuild, along with rebuilding themselves, and they won that one, too. It's about showing that bravery isn't always this sparkling, flashy thing. It's also overcoming the silences and the grief and the struggles and making it to the other side.

And, so, yeah, I suppose that leads me to write about trauma. Although that isn't the initial endeavour, it's certainly part of it. And as you pointed out yourself, that road is full of ups and downs because "living" is fucking fantastic, but it's also fucking hard. I find the phrasing you used about Ginny typically being the "stable" one in other fics particularly interesting. I'd never thought about it that way, but I see what you mean. And, the thing with Castles is: none of them (and I mean H & G but also Ron, Hermione - hell even Kingsley) are particularly stable or unstable. To me, they just are. They exist and they live and they try to put one foot in front of the next the best way they can, with very little sense of plan or strategy. They sort of make do, which to me is the only realistic way I can envision the post-war world. They're kids who've just lived through the apocalypse. It's unrealistic to me that any of them would hold all of the answers, or even come close to having their shit together.

To me, it was and is very important to show all sides of that spectrum. Although they likely all wouldn't have suffered from acute PTSD, they would certainly all have struggled with something. Not everyone deals with everything the same way, and I want to show feelings of guilt, and bravery, and confusion, and fear, and determination which are all as unique as the individuals who experience them. I also wanted to show that not everything has a clear-cut explanation for it. For example, when Ginny breaks up with Harry in chap3, she says some truly horrible things. But, what she does say is also the one percent of everything that lies under the surface. She says she breaks up with him for Reason A but it's actually Reason A. 1, A.2, B, C, D, etc. Because, truth be told, that is what happens in life. People rarely give you a neat little list of all the reasons they do something, especially if, again, they've just lived through something huge. Often, you only truly find out the real reasons for people's actions months later, and often, that's because they themselves don't even know, haven't made sense of it in their heads. So, of course, I think it's incredibly important to write all of them as going through something, because to me anything else would be deeply unrealistic.

And, truth be told, I've thought about this extensively every time I've re-read the books in the past. Throughout the years, I started countless drafts on this topic, which I often gave up and left unfinished, until now. I think what motivated me this time is honestly the pandemic. I re-read the books during the first lockdown, then set out to find The Perfect Fanfiction which would deal with all of that. I'd never been in the Potter fandom before and thought to myself: 'there's like a million fics in that fandom, someone must have written this.' And, to this day, I still sort of believe that? Like, I've had a lot of comments in the past year telling me that they like or dislike Castles because it has a unique "tone" and a unique "mood" as well as themes but I'm always like "really? someone else must have written this," haha. But, despite spending a lot of time looking, I never found it so I suppose that's when I decided to write it, haha.

And, here we are, lol.

[trash0receptacle]

Stress pt. 2

(This is based on my personal issues and stuff more as a way to cope. I’m not romanticizing any of mental illness and my goal is not to offend anyone. I also feel I should put a warning so trigger warning for: Depression, Anixety, Mentions of Anorexia, and death.)

If you feel any like this may trigger you then feel free to skip it.

My dms are open but I don’t have notifications turned on however I’m fairly active on here. With that out of the way

With the statement left hanging in the air the atmosphere of the room turned serious. Mc gained a vacant and sad expression.

“What do you mean it happened before you got here?” Satan questioned

“Mc, you know you can trust us right?” Asked them avatar of envy

This got a chuckle out of Mc who uncharacteristically said

“Trust is bullshit.... everyone I’ve trusted has either lied to me, hurt me, or left me. Trust isn’t exactly something I believe in anymore.”

The brothers had never seen Mc speak with such bitterness and sadness. It was shocking coming from the human who acted like an angel.

“Mc, I-“ Lucifer tried to say but was cut off by mammon

“Mc who hurt ya” Mammon questioned very angrily

“It’s a long list”

Mammon just hugged Mc tighter while the others stared holes into Mc’s clouded eyes.

“I know if I say what happened I won’t be able to stop. If I tell you guys then I’ll end up telling you everything and it’s not your fault I’ve had a lot of shitty stuff happen to me.”

“Mc you don’t need to feel like your burdening us with your problems honey.” Asmo murmured

“If I tell you just promise me you guys won’t you know hurt people because I have a feeling you guys might get a little angry” Mc painfully laughed

All of the brothers nodded thinking Mc must have been exaggerating but where soon to find out they weren’t.

“Well let’s start when my childhood ended, when the person I never thought I could live without left, my aunt. The person I had to watch die and suffer for months unbeknownst to myself. When at 12 years old I stayed by her side every day because I didn’t want her to feel alone. The person who plagues my dreams and subconscious. Then in middle school how I was mocked for being “sad” about how I watched my life be torn apart in front of me. How my parents became stricter and distant quick to punish me for anything. How my tract record for being everyone’s therapist started. When I started telling people how they matter and shouldn’t off themselves. How I avoided my own internal demons by consoling others who would later hurt me. Then how all I became good for was advice and I had no one I could vent to not even my therapist. After that I started starving myself because I couldn’t bring myself to cut. My friends cut but I wouldn’t because I couldn’t let anyone know how broken I truly was. How I became horribly suicidal and almost committed suicide in 7th grade twice. Or how on my 13th birthday I was throwing up inside the restaurant bathroom and when o came out my parents shook me asking me if I did it on purpose. I still don’t know if I did or not. Then I got better. I was saved by my parents and my therapist however I was emotionally exhausted at this point. Then bam 8th grade happened. At this point because school had been easy for me I never had to try before and my grades plummeted so I stopped caring about school. My parents were always on my case about missing assignments and bad grades and everything. Not to mention when I tired to be kind to a girl getting bullied because I felt sympathy. I saw myself in her and told the other kids to knock it off. However I guess she took that as an insensitive to start harassing me and ultimately assaulting me for months. I was told I didn’t have a choice when I tried to stand up for myself so I disassociated. At the same time my only grandfather was diagnosed with a Brian tumor but the doctors were positive he would be okay. I had friends who were well connected because I went to catholic school so I was able to surprise my grandfather with being able to be on the field as his favorite football team warmed up. He got a signed football form the coach that he would keep in his family room next or his chair. However a month later he was put in hospice like my aunt. I couldn’t handle it so recently after the last time. But at least my aunt kept her personality unlike my grandfather who I had to watch be unable to care for himself and lose his memories. After that was blue well until my birthday that year which my dad forgot. Then my grandfather died a month later but I was unable to attend his funeral because of the coronavirus. How next I was almost put in the hospital for attempting to unalive and because I had starved myself to the point where I ate once a day. Then summer happened and I was happy again. My friends lifted my spirit but then they all got in relationships and didn’t need me anymore. So I became in their eyes a lying and narcissistic bitch. I was told I was fat and awful by them. And then I got okay again but still didn’t trust people and we arrive in the present. Oh well I forgot to mention my parents disowned me but that’s a another story.”

Mammon started to cry and hold Mc just wanting to feel like they could protect them. He knew Mc had been through a lot but to this extent he had no idea. He felt so angry that people did this to his human.He felt guilt for calling Mc a stupid human knowing it probably hurt mc.

Levi went over to Mc and hugged them from behind. He wasn’t the most affectionate person but he wanted to confirm they were here. He never wanted his Henry to feel like they didn’t matter. He felt guilty about telling them to die in arguments where his anger to the better of him.

Satan just sat there unsure of what to do or say. What could he say “hey I’m sorry you got assaulted?” His wrath wanted to destroy the people who did this to Mc but Mc seemed to believe it was their fault. They also seemed like they don’t want violence.

Asmo just sat next to Mc like Levi wanting to confirm they were there. He felt so bad about being so flirty and touchy now knowing why Mc seemed to be so modest. He wished he’d known because looking back in it he probably brought memories back mc wanted to forget.

Beel for once didn’t feel hungry so he left to go to the kitchen not for himself but for Mc. Mc said they used to starve themselves? This is why the offer him their food. He felt shameful for eating it knowing the truth now.

Belphie just put his head on mc’s lap. They let him do it before so he figured it was fine. Even with all of Mc’s personal stuff they still wanted to help him. He wouldn’t let Mc feel like that again.

Lucifer was shell shocked. His pride wouldn’t let him show emotion so he left. He went to his office to find Mc’s file. None of this was in it. He talked to Diavolo informing him of the sudden “update”. He wanted to talk to Mc privately but figured he’d need to wait.

Mc felt guilty. “I knew I shouldn’t have said anything” “look now they hate you”. They really couldn’t handle all of this right now and asked for some space to think. Much to the brothers dismay they left knowing if Mc truly wanted to be alone they would be able to use their pact.

Lucifer however didn���t have a pact with Mc so he didn’t have to listen. Knowing they would be alone he asked them to come to his study.

When they arrived he just held mc.

Note: Yeah I didn’t know how to finish and I’m a little sick so please don’t be that critical. And I’m alright now I just know that a lot of people (myself included) find comfort or something similar when reading angst. It can help them with their issues etc. Anyway have a wonderful day or night loves

- Caroilne