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herinterface · 2 years

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> # @itsasset ... > # ask meme ...

“ what am i here for ? ” she intoned with a smile that she’d manufactured the moment she stepped into the lobby but was now trying to make real for Her sake, trying to breathe life into the spark of curiosity she felt for the task She had ahead for her. when no reply came her eyes took a slow trail around the hotel function room, knowing that meant it was just her & the room full of people & their secrets, that she’d know it when she saw it. the fact that she was back in new york however was slowly eating away at her, stewing under the surface of her high-roller cover identity who was supposed to feel right at home here, amongst the rest of them, who’s paycheque had no doubt bought their invitation. it was an undeserved self-assuredness she’d seen her whole life & had never quite understood-------- why anyone would tie themselves to other steadily sinking objects & call it something sweet, all to fit in somewhere.

she’d once had a sense of that herself. when harold was still around, when she could slink into the subway for a reprieve from the lives she was pretending to live------ she’d never admit it, but sometimes it was easier, letting herself go, transform into something else rather than face their crumbling reality. she hadn’t been back here in months, always swept into one corner of the world or another, only leaving her signature unknown, unexplained erased scene full of unconscious bodies in her wake ( that, or the slack-jawed confusion from someone local law enforcement would never bother to believe anyway ). as if on cue she felt a persistent tension in her muscles, from the job that blurred into the next, that blurred into the next, to the next with no ending. when she’d first heard Her voice she’d never even considered one. she’d never thought that she’d ache for her feet on the ground.

she saw it then. her slow once over of the room brought her to one slightly concealed corner. she felt her lips curling to one side almost instinctively at the sight of something she was having trouble computing for all of the many factors involved. she huffed out a breath, but before any accusatory glance could be levelled to the phone of someone in front of her taking a group photo, instructions filtered through her implant. it didn’t do much to quell her suspicions for her purpose here even if She claimed she had one other than watching some brunette’s hand inch up shaw’s thigh. she tried not to ask about shaw ( but She told her anyway & she never complained ).

she breathed out, settling herself in against the column behind her, unable to look away from the defiant way shaw was staring back at her present company, the tick of interest she could still expertly read like she’d only just recently read her cover to cover for the hundredth time. she didn’t like the way she felt it, how she wasn’t in control of the look in her eyes, like something sharp that hadn’t been dislodged, reminding her all of that flawed code she’d been infected with in a town with less than three-thousand that she’d never managed to erase from her system ( the girl who’d clung too tightly to a select few people, despite knowing that people were fleeting & inconsistent & minutes away from ensuring their own destruction & the destruction of others along with them. ) she was the reason for the emptiness she could now recognise for what it was, having disrupting their perfect routine with everything she’d wished she wasn’t made of.

she laid it on thick, made sure to spread it over all of her uneven edges, her voice dripping in something thick & sweet as she patched the smirk at her lips, “ she seems nice, ” & her lower lip lifted as she continued her assessment of shaw’s date, a sigh passing her lips, “ a little forward though, ” she added like they both weren’t vividly aware that that was just their type. she was suddenly caught off guard again then. she didn’t expect how much she’d be affected by the way shaw’s rapt attention was suddenly broken, how they looked up in search for the sound of her voice like no time had passed; it made all of those aches resurface at once, that sharp object reaching her lungs. it took them some time to finally lay their eyes on her, & she did little else but stare back when they did, unable to do much else with no air occupying her lungs. her smile remained perfectly in place, but her gaze dropped to where the other woman’s hand was now. she felt her fingers curl at her sides, & she remembered the way shaw’s body used to play for her team, unable to resist for long asking her for more even while shaw said otherwise. she remembered enjoying the way shaw tried not to bristle under her playful gaze when she decided to tune in to whatever fun she was trying to have with someone else; she’d never minded when she had the assurance that their body could never lie to her. shaw was a little more careful around her these days ( ------ that didn’t mean she wouldn’t take the opportunity to remind them of all of that at the next given chance, especially when they both knew it was all still true. sink her teeth in until she tasted blood, have them buckle beneath her, like that would convince them ).

" it’s for the mission. " she heard them say moments later, when they had the chance.

her mouth parted & worked itself around a different kind of smile, “ of course it is, ” she replied almost curtly but bordering on patronising, the animation in her voice diffused significantly from when she first started speaking. she took her eyes off them & she felt like she could make it, do as She asked, “ that’s why I’m here. ”

#bc this ship isn't angsty enough #it's time for me to finally write in this verse where they 'broke up'#( / ). ᴘʟᴀʏғᴜʟʟʏ ᴡɪᴛᴛʏ sɪɢɴ ᴏғғ; ❪ ask ❫

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lonelier-version-of-you · 7 months

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I've been thinking about the Gaskell storyline some more, and it occurred to me that I think its problem - well, one of its many, many problems - is that it refuses to quite fully embrace Henrik as an antagonist, at least until RTTM.

When one considers Henrik's position in the story, he very clearly is an antagonist in it. Not the main antagonist - that, of course, is John himself - but he is one nonetheless. He is essentially aiding and abetting John for the majority of the story, particularly its last few months. I won't pretend he knew everything John was doing, but it's not as though he was totally unaware that there were flaws in John's ethics. Henrik wasn't an innocent, manipulated victim, he was an enabler.

Several other characters openly questioned John's trial, Roxanna in particular repeatedly coming to Henrik to discuss the problems. And even when Henrik at all considered listening to them - which he didn't always do - he ultimately went back to taking John's side. "Keep Your Friends Close" comes to mind as a great example of this: even before John starts trying to convince Henrik that Roxanna is mentally ill so that Henrik won't listen to her, Henrik makes up his mind that John is in the right.

Undeniably, it's also worth mentioning that most of the people who prominently questioned John's trial were women - such as Roxanna, Meena, and Jac. There were men who questioned it too, like Sacha and Ric, but for most of the storyline it's women who are trying to blow the whistle on John's work so to speak.

So the storyline is ultimately one about Henrik dismissing and not listening to women - which makes sense and ties back closely to things like the Sahira storyline in S13 and S14.

Except the show, it seems, didn't quite have the courage to consistently paint Henrik as an antagonist throughout all of this, unlike how it had throughout the Sahira story. So it also gave us things like the "Henrik is in love with Roxanna, isn't it cute" scenes, which IMO do not fit with the rest of the story at all and perhaps even lessen the impact of how badly he treats Roxanna. Even if Henrik having romantic feelings for her had to be an element of the story, which I don't think it did, I don't like how it seems to be painted as "cute" for much of the storyline, considering how he treats her. It feels like "oh, well, he does love Roxanna so maybe he's not so bad". He was in love with Sahira too and that wasn't treated as cute.

I don't think Henrik has to be doing unsympathetic things in every scene he's in to be recognised by the show as an antagonistic figure rather than a hero. He wasn't unsympathetic in every scene at the time of the Sahira storyline. John himself wasn't unsympathetic in every scene during his storyline, and was still very much depicted as a bad person. But I do think there is a fine line, and, unfortunately, I feel that Holby crossed it. It feels like the show didn't quite know how to handle Henrik as an antagonist anymore after years of him being more of an antihero - and I say that as someone who likes Henrik as an antihero, S15 is my favourite for him for a reason.

So although the Gaskell storyline has some great commentary in it when one looks deeper, it doesn't show up on the surface level - when I think it should have done, given what an essential aspect of the storyline it is. It should be, at its centre, very openly a story about the consequences of men not taking women seriously. It fails to be that, and thus easily comes across as "a generic evil scientist story" when it is anything but. Well, even worse than that, the main part of the story that ends up being emphasised instead is "John is evil because he's mentally ill", an ableist trope the show had no reason to use.

None of this is helped by how, after the storyline ends, Henrik faces basically no consequences - he even got to run the hospital again, which was encouraged by other characters, despite him being the very person who let everything with John happen.

I didn't mean for this to get as long as it has, lol, but I suppose I still have so many thoughts about the Gaskell story. One thing I will say in praise of it, after all of this, is that I appreciate that it manages to be a story where Henrik's romantic love for another man is part of his downfall without implying anything homophobic through it. That, at least, was well done.

#Holby City #Henrik Hanssen #John Gaskell #my meta

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thequietmanno1 · 2 years

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Thelreads, Vigilantes 73, Replies Part 2

1) “You know, I understand the impact of bringing all those people that knew Pop to bear witness to her destroying their life and hurting so many innocent people all while completely oblivious to why she`s doing this in the first place but… I also have a feeling that this is going to be pretty much the last time we`ll see them for a long time and neither of them will be relevant for the arc. They are only here to add to the shock value, then they go back into the box of puppets that Furuhashi brings out when he needs to”- Someone’s gonna have to make a true law-breaking vigilante out of Koichi in order to save Pop, and I don’t think any of these guys are quite willing to wear the longcoat of vigilantism alongside him…. 2) “Oh yeah, definitely having fun here. Can`t deny that I would enjoy seeing this scene animated, it seems like one of those moments that would really shine in anime form, like the class 1-A show back in the main series, except that evil.”- Her laughter covers up the tears flowing on the inside. Though, at least part of her probably does feel nice to let all these pent-up emotions out in song, motion and explosion all at once. Not so great for the viewers, but that’s the price of stardom. 3) “What the- Didn`t any of you see who made the danger zone in the first place? Goddammit, what good were those hacker bees for if she didn`t even got a crowd to watch her show?!”- Like the public are willing to ignore the ugly reality about the flaws in hero society back in MA, to the point of ignoring those in obvious trouble like young Tenko, these girls are warping the situation in their heads to fit their perception of who Pop used to be, not quite able to grasp who she’s become yet. It takes Pop giving them a verbal slap in the face for them to start getting it, which in a way, is sorta what Tomura intends to do to everybody once his ascension is completed, only he plans to take it much further… 4) “I mean, she`s not wrong per see, we all agree with that, but that`s not pop speaking, it`s the parasite distorting her thoughts and make her act in ways that she would never act. This is the equivalent of a kid pretending to be edgy and violent so others think they are cool, except that, you know, with brainwashing.”- Apros of nothing, I have to say, between the sleeker costume, darkened skin and more confident personality, the new villain look is really working for Pop. Shame she wasn’t able to look that good without some unwanted assistance from Nomura, but sometimes a manager can get too invasive with the handling of their future Star. 5) “Ah, yes, just like expected. Can`t have the whole “brainwashed into evil” without trying to kill your closest friends at least once, bonus point if it is right when they are trying to call to you, completely unaware that you are the danger. Classic move.”- Of course, if this is her reaction towards her closest friends, then she’s gonna do so much worse to Koichi when he tries again to save her. She brushed him off for now, but that was to make him feel as insignificant and immaterial as she felt by him not really recognising her feelings towards him, though obviously her brainwashing is making her overlook her own culpability in not plainly spelling it out to him. Pop knows Koichi well enough to know he’s going to try again, and that time, she’ll break his body as much as his spirit. 6) “I said…Sure hope no crawling hero comes around to save her from her inevitable doom or something. “-Koichi nearly missed his cue to enter the scene heroically, just like he’s missed nearly every cue to pick up on Pop’s romantic intentions towards him. 7) “Ah, there he is. You know Koichi, you need to pay attention to what I said, you almost missed the cue there. It would be dreadful if Pop actually killed or at the very least severely injured one of the people she cares about so deeply, that was dangerous we almost had lasting consequences there, can`t let that happen, we already have enough with that hole on Pop`s head.”- Shot through the head And You’re to Blame You give Love A Bad name. 8) “Oh, there goes Hopper the Hop man, hopping into the fray in hopes that he can figure out what the fuck is going on.”- But if you leap too high without a proper landing strategy in mind, all that’ll happen to you is a nasty fall. Getting badly burned in the process also didn’t help. 9) “Oh, that seems familiar… Yeah, that certainly take us back to the first time Koichi jumped from a building to reach a falling pop, except that this time she`s not falling per see, she`s actually going up, and she`s not in danger, she is the danger.”- That time too ended with Pop knocking Koichi down to the ground whilst she soared up higher to safety, though this time she used her words to take the wind out his sails and his spirit instead, which was arguably more devastating for Koichi to experience. 10)“Sure sure, it`s all the parasite talking, but even so, he`s using her mind to know exactly what to say, it knows what she feels, and I could see it just bringing up all the pent-up frustration that she felt throughout the years.

This is not something that Pop would say, but it is definitely something she thought about before.”- ‘Bee all my sins remembered…’ 11)”I can`t believe even the fucking queen is a tsundere. Fuck`s sake, I give up- Apparently there`s things that even brainwashing can`t get rid off.”- Tamao’s aggressiveness was partially spurred on by her opponent at the time being her dad, and her prior existing issues with him, so clearly for the parasite to make the host more violence-prone, having a target they’ve got strong emotional connections to makes it easier for them to lash out. 12) “You`re still here? fuck off McBee, there`s a show going on, we don`t want to waste time with your sorry ass.”- He’s aware- Hell, he’s munching down on some popcorn he’s holding with his free hand here. 13) “Oh- Oof, okay, I take back what I said, Koichi definitely got a permanent scar there, an emotional one. The queen sure packs some sting on her words”- Can’t become a badass crime fighter without picking up an injury or two along the way. Just as Knuckleduster… 14) “Yeah koichi, ouch. The pavement below won`t hurt as much as what pop just said to you, because, due to Knuckles incredible parenting, you are not even aware of the parasite and why she`s acting like this. To you and to everyone else, it`s like she just snapped and started laying waste to the city.

fucking ouch.”- Well, at least now he’s got the change to lay all his cards on the table now and pull Koichi into the loop, given how the Villain factory is so obviously targeting his protégée now with this stunt. 15) “Wait- No Pop, that was supposed to be the Last surprise, what are you doing? Are you going to Take over the stage like that? Absurd, the fame really got to your head, didn`t it? Ugh, those divas of nowadays…”- Her next hit will make them cry rivers. In the Desert. 16) “Bahahah- Sorry, it`s just- it was a dramatic exit alright, but it just really looks like Pop said “That`s all folks, until next time” and then fucking blew up. Just like that. Boom. Completely gone. “- ‘Insert Loony Tunes music here’ 17) “I feel like this exact shot of a creepy alleyway was used at least a dozen of times by now, but I`m too lazy too check, so I`m just going to move on and finish this.”- From the darkness, a hero will emerge…after he’s gotten rid of the trash still covering his clothes. 18) “Ah, managed to land on a heap of trash? Just like your pa taught you, right? That`s the spirit koichi, lay there for a moment and be one with the trash, I bet you`re probably feeling like it right now at least.”- Well, who better to clean up the trash and make it all presentable again than a Janitor?

19) “That was… surprisingly entertaining to watch. Sure, had that Furuhashi touch that just makes you go “ugh” but still, there was something that was- dare I say- fun, in seeing pop destroying a neighborhood and killing an untold number of innocent people against her will.

I have mixed feelings about those sort of brainwashing acts, they are a bit less interesting than just an actual corruption of a character into evil, but even so, that was kind of interesting”- I think that’s what makes the current conflict with the heroes and the PLF so engaging, specially the upper brass that comprised the league. Some of them we still don’t know enough about, like Compress, but Spinner, Toga, Twice and even Tomura are all shown to be people who have genuinely good aspects to them and care for their comrades beyond the fact that they need each other to achieve their goals. If things had been different, each one of them could have ended up in Class 1A alongside Izuku and the rest, fighting on the side of good, but Ironically those same ‘good’ aspects help drive them further into ‘evil’. Toga cares for others and wants to be closer to them, but this drives her murderous impulses and desire for bloodletting. When Mange was killed Toga went through an extremely risky situation just to avenge her, but she also had no problems stabbing and wounding heroes who got in her way during the raid.

Spinner is a sociable guy, and does his best to make sure the League ‘sticks’ together and ‘sticks’ to their goals, but he’s also advocating for them to keep pushing their anti-hero agenda despite the consequences on innocent civilians if the PLF actually enacted revolution on a societal scale. However, this also means he’s refusing to quit and stands by his principles to the end despite his personal powerlessness. Tomura is obviously a parallel to Izuku, a kid who could have been a hero, ad those heroic traits shine through when he’s leading the league against the MLA and putting himself at risk to achieve his dreams, even basically admitting that he’s ok with dying in the end so long as they can have a free future, demonstrating a similar self-sacrificing streak to Izuku, but twisted all around to befit a villain’s stance. And Twice…Twice is in the process of throwing away Hawk’s last offer of mercy because he stands by and supports the friends who were there for him when nobody else was, and his ‘mistakes’ were simply being too trusting and kindly towards people who took advantage of that. Everybody’s the hero of their own story, but for Pop, it’s no longer her story anymore. It’s Nomura’s as she’s just a puppet dancing on the stage he’s set up from the background. @thelreads

#bnha #bnha vigilantes #thelreads #chapter replies #my hero academia #vigilantes 73

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misora-msby · 4 years

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embarrassing moments with inarizaki

inarizaki always looks so cool but you know they’re actually dorks and i am here to provide you the content to show theyre clowns. enjoy the headcanons :)

Kita Shinsuke

firstly. kita shinsuke being embarrased? making a mistake? unheard of.

he’s a perfect man and we all know it.

anyways

you two were having a nice dinner out together.

it was a pretty fancy place so you decided to dress in a different style today

but you were beginning to wonder if kita liked it or not because he seemed to keep looking past your shoulder instead of at you

he was an observant guy so you were wondering if something had happened behind you

but you couldn’t hear anything weird so you assumed not

you decided to just stay quiet about it at first but now it was beginning to become annoying!

why wasn’t he looking you in the eye to speak?

midway through your dinner, kita finally spoke up tho

“y/n, your shirt is slipping... yer bra’s showing.”

oh.

right. you were wearing your off-shoulder top.

“o-oh. shin, it’s that kind of shirt, you know?” you had to explain your outfit to ur bf with a pink face.

“oh... that so... well it’s cold these days so if yer feelin’ cold lemme know. i’ll give ya my jacket.”

GOD HES SO PERFECT KITA SHINSUKE I HOPE U MARRY HIM???????

Ojiro Aran

another man with next to no flaws.

but nature says everyone has to make some mistake.

so it was a regular school day, our aran has just come to class from morning practice and there’s still some time left until class starts.

all the girls in class are gathered around a table

he’s not sure why, it’s probably watching an idol video

but ur man wants to be a little romantic!!

plus he just showered so he smells Great uwu

he goes over and hugs you from behind, placing his chin on ur head.

“hey, bb whatcha ya doin”

all the girls gasp.

he doesn’t get whats wrong, it’s not like it’s a secret y’all are dating

pda to this level aint bad either

especially compared to his teammate miya atsumu

“ojiro aran.”

why is your voice behind him

he looks down and nearly faints when he sees he hugged the wrong girl.

to be fair she looked a lot like you from behind, just maybe 1cm shorter.

“i’m so sorry!” he keeps apologising to literally everyone and all the class is giggling bc they never seen their school’s ace so red before.

“didn’t think i’d come back from the toilet and see my bf cheatin”

“IT WAS A MISTAKE! I’M SERIOUS! Y/N U KNOW I LOVE YA!”

hes so funny i swear

the volleyball team hears of it and it gets even better

Miya Atsumu

it’s not a secret that miya atsumu, setter of the inarizaki volleyball team and invited to national youth training camp, had a gf

he was very much in love with u

the whole class knew it because he’d show it off whenever he could too

so here comes valentines day

last year he received like... 50 different gifts from girls and guys aiming to win his love.

you didnt even give him one lmAOOOOO

but this year, he had been not so subtly trying to hint that “i better not receive any chocolates this year when i’ve got a gf!”

he reaches school and plops into his seat.

there’s an anonymous box of chocolates with “please accept my love, miya-kun! <3″ on it

“the hell’s this?!”

“oh? chocolates?” - osamu who just popped his head into the class to shove into his twin’s face how much chocolate he got.

especially since the blond was off limits, the grey-haired twin had a bigger following now.

“do they not know i have a girlfriend...”

“well, ya might as well eat it. ya dont know who to return it to.”

“that’s like receivin’ their love!”

“no it ain’t. it’s just food.”

atsumu couldn’t argue with that and popped a piece in.

it was very delicious. the chocolate practically melted on his tongue and was the perfect sweetness and was filled with a delicious ganache too.

it was perfect

but he couldn’t accept this!

“it ain’t even good. too sweet and the filling’s sticky.”

“ah. really? is that what you think, tsumu?” you ask from the door where you had been watching the exchange take place.

“y/n! look at this! some weirdo gave me some choco and like... samu said to test it but i’ll toss it out, promise.”

“tsumu, i made that... i wrote it anonymously because i thought you’d know it was me and i wanted to tease you a little.”

“huh.”

osamu: “yeah actually i went over to her place to teach her how to make it.”

atsumu: “you said you went to suna’s place?!”

osamu: “i went there later but i first went to help her.”

you: “anyways if it’s not good i don’t mind if you toss it out...”

tsumu: “NO NO BABE I PROMISE IT’S GOOD”

you: “you just said-”

“BABE I SWEAR IT’S GOOD I JUST DIDN’T WANT TO ACCEPT A STRANGER’S STUFF”

“you’re always so honest though... are you sure?” you were having your fun teasing him now.

“BB PLSSSSSS”

he still cringes at the memory 4 years into ur marriage

Miya Osamu

osamu would DEFINITELY make home made dinner dates a regular thing.

this alone shows he’s the better twin - miya atsumu stan

he loves cooking and eating with you so sometimes when he’s got a day off you guys’ll set aside the afternoon to make a real nice dinner

imagine candlelit dinner with miya dorito body osamu in a suit

of course some fun stuff happens after too ;)))

and today’s your third anniversary!!

so osamu adds lots of ‘natural aphrodisiacs’ to the meal

i’m talkin

garlic bread and soup for an appetiser, a nice juicy steak with garlic and red wine sauce for the main, and chocolate coated strawberries for dessert

mm yummy

you two cleaned your plates completely (it was very delicious) and as you were washing the dishes, osamu comes up behind and wraps his arms around your waist

“yes, ‘samu?”

“i’ve already prepared us a nice bath with yer favourite scents.” he’s got his head resting on ur chin

“really? thank you~ i’ll be there in a bit”

but he doesn’t let go of you while you’re still scrubbing at the baking sheets.

“osamu, you can let go for now.”

“don’t feel like it.”

“i gotta wash the dishes since you did most of the cooking.”

“mmm, i’ll do it if ya gimme a kiss.”

you roll ur eyes bc what a cutie

u turn ur head to give him a kiss but suddenly he

he burps

that garlicy wine smell is just kinda there

“ew! ‘samu!!”

his face is real red but he’s also trying not to laugh because he’s still a dude and this is absolutely hilarious to him

“want another?” he starts teasing

“i’m not getting in the bath with you.”

“wait wait wait i’m sorry, i’ll go brush my teeth and give you a proper kiss”

Suna Rintarou

you two were taking the train home today

it was quite late due to practice going a little longer than usual, so he insisted he walked you back home today.

sunarin can be a good boyf sometimes ok

it was getting a little crowded on the train tho, since people were heading home or going out for dinner

luckily you had already grabbed seats so you were quite comfortable sitting side by side.

you and suna have the type of relationship were you dont have to talk all the time

silence is v comfy.

he’s just scrolling through twitter on his phone while you’re looking around the car, lost in ur thoughts

suddenly you notice an old lady standing a little bit away from you and you stand up

“baa-san, please take my seat.” you whisper in the crowded carriage

“oh how kind of you. thank you, dearie.” she smiles and takes your seat while you stand in front of her and suna instead.

suna doesn’t realise this exchange has happened tho

(he’s on his phone as usual)

probably starting some fights on twitter

he decides to try to be a little romantic and pretends to stretch his arm around (who he thought was) you.

“rin.”

why is your voice right in front of him?

“young man, i appreciate it but i’m married.”

suna jumps as he sees someone he did not recognise next to him.

he looks up and notices you had moved.

you’re giggling

the granny’s giggling

atsumu and osamu sitting opposite on the carriage look like they’re going to cry because they’re trying not to laugh

“i was just stretching. really.” he mumbles and crosses his arms, face red as a tomato

he’s so embarrassed.

Ginjima Hitoshi

sometimes the inarizaki vbc would go for an after practice snack at the nearby family mart

they were really hungry after an intense preparation for nationals which was in two weeks so kita insisted they all get something to fill them up on the way home

but lucky lucky ginjima hhehe

you (his classmate who he had a crush on) were working at the cash register today.

“welcome!” you greet everyone as they enter

he cant help but stiffen up a bit

why are u so cute and cheery today

the 2nd years already know what to do.

“heyy, i think last week i bought ya that ramen right? ya owe me my konbini snacks today!” - atsumu

“yeah. you lost a bet to me last week so u gotta pay up. a pack of jelly fruit sticks please.” - suna

“forgot my money today, mind payin’ for my snacks too?” - osamu

“like hell i’m paying for all of you. especially you, osamu. you eat too much all the time.”

aran’s noticed what’s going on,

“hey, if it’s just for today you can do it right? if ‘samu don’t pay ya back tomorrow i’ll nag him ‘til he does.”

“fine...” his basket is full when he goes to the counter.

he’s trying his best not to have a red face while watching u scan the items, ur hair swaying slightly as u look back and forth between the objects and the screen.

“alright. 4,890 yen please!” GOD he hated how expensive it was, that’s almost all his weekly allowance but bc it’s u and ur voice saying it it’s kinda ok

“mm, ok.” he still has his eyes on you while he takes out his wallet and puts it on the counter.

yes

his wallet, not the money

“...” “...”

“excuse me, sir. this is...”

he almost slaps his face wtf he’s so embarrassed.

“s-sorry. just a little absent minded after practice.” he starts pulling out his cash.

“it’s fine! i know how hard you guys practice!” you smile while performing the rest of the transaction and pass him his big bag of goods. “good luck for nationals, ginjima-kun!”

he almost runs out of the store and is about to fight the rest of the 2nd years for watching and (suna) recording

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lily-orchard-gossip-blog · 2 years

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Speaking strictly from the perspective of an outsider in regards to this show, one thing that sticks out to me in hindsight about Lily's review of Steven Universe is her comments about Lapis Lazuli being an abuser, how she was a terrible person for a number of reasons, and how it was another indictment against Rebecca Sugar's writing.

But the thing is, after giving it some thought and reading over some other people's thoughts of abuse, that made me think:

Maybe that's kind of part of the point that she doesn't want to admit.

To be fair, it's not entirely false that Lapis Lazuli's writing was kind of haphazard, partly due to the series being so Steven-centric that her development was extremely truncated and oftentimes sidelined.

However, the thing about her point of view is that there seems to be something of an undertone of acting as if an abuse victim has to be as morally clean as possible, as much of the "right kind of abuse victim as possible" in order to be considered sympathetic and a "good example of abuse on television", or else they're just an abuser pretending to be a victim.

But that's not how abuse victims work at all. Abuse victims are not clean, perfect and pretty. They are flawed, they are varied, and they are capable of absorbing toxic mindsets and behaviors. They do not perfectly fit into a specific box set upon them by society about what an abuse victim is "supposed to be". They will lash out because they are hurt, they are confused and uncertain and above all else:

They are still human.

And they still deserve that chance to heal. They might very well need to face the music for any damage that they might have caused themselves, but that doesn't suddenly make them unworthy of being helped.

We can certainly debate on whether Lapis' behavior towards others and Peridot was warranted, or if it advocated for abuse, or whether the writing of Steven Universe was too inept at handling the subject, but...yeah.

P.S. To be honest, there are elements of Lapis that frankly seem to mirror Lily herself, more specifically some of the worse parts of her person, except at least Lapis could try and make the effort to improve herself, even as flawed and haphazard as her character's writing was. I honestly doubt Lily could do the same if she were in Lapis' shoes.

Lapis recognised that she had played a role in how toxic her relationship was with Jasper. She may have been abused, but she also did toxic and abusive things back. That's how a lot of toxic relationships work. Two people hurting each other repeatedly in worst ways until one of them has to walk away.

It's never clean, it's never pretty, but it's human.

#steven universe

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siriuslyshewrote · 3 years

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Beautiful Boy - James Potter

A/N: aptly titled because yes, we all believe that James Potter is the most beautiful boy.

Requested? : yes

Word Count : 1.3k

Summary : James Potter fluff. What else could we possibly want?

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was something that could never be described as dull. Every moment spent in it was a blur of heightened emotions, whether they be good and bad, and there was never a day that went by without chaos. In comparison, your summers were positively dull.

As much as you loved the castle, you loved the people even more, your housemates and classmates, in particularly the close circle of friends you had woven together over your seven years in Hogwarts. Lily , Mary and Marlene took precedent as your closest girl friends, the ones with which every night in the dormitories was a sleepover, toasting your feet agains the little log burner, listening to the latest muggle records, and laughing your heads off. Sirius and Remus and Peter were brilliant boys, and you loved them deeply, too. James always said you loved too deeply.

It was he that you loved the most, that messy haired bespectacled boy with the crooked , previously broken nose and lopsided grin. With his warm hands and suffocating hugs and intoxicating presence. James knew you more than anyone, and had been a constant in your life since the two of you were tiny children, growing up living on the same street. He above anyone knew each one of your deepest and darkest secrets, your most mortifying memories, and embarrassing crushes. All but one, of course.

The crackling embers of the fire, and the quiet, exhausted chatter of the group around you soothed you, as you finally gave up on your Transfiguration essay, and dropped both it and your quill onto one of the many rugs that littered the floor of the common room. Music, from someone or others record player, played Bowie in the background.

"Tired?"

James grinned from beside you, his head lolling on the back of the sofa. He, too, had given up on his essay, by this time. You had no idea how he wasn't asleep already - he got up at the crack of dawn every single morning to play Quidditch, and still had the exuberant energy of a golden retriever.

You nodded , barely suppressing a yawn as you stretched out on the sofa the both of you were sharing, laying your head into his lap, wearily watching the animated conversation between Marlene and Sirius about something or other. Knowing Sirius and Marlene, she was trying to point out the flaws in another one of his crazily thought out schemes. Remus, too, was watching the pair with a secret smile upon his face - his eyes straying more to Sirius than anyone else, over the top of his book.

Mary was already asleep, curled up in a velvet armchair like a cat, her limbs tucked underneath her as she snored gently.

Your eyelashes drooped, brushing against your cheek, as your eyes closed against your protest. N.E.W.T's, you had very quickly discovered during your first few week back at school for seventh year, were living up to their name this year. They truly were exhausting.

Fingers combed through your hair, with a gentle clumsiness that you would recognise even if your head was currently not in his lap.

"What're you doing?" You mumbled sleepily, too tired to open your eyes, poking at his knee with your finger.

"Stop fussing. I'm just braiding your hair." He whispered, continuing with his mission.

You hoped that he was too concerned with your hair to see the smile that tugged on your lips at his words. James often devised these projects, randomly wanting to learn to do things until he achieved his goal. You had become his subject over the past few weeks as he attempted to learn how to braid, and had, several times walked back into the dormitory to the girls cackles at your newest hairstyle. James had the energy and will to do anything he wanted ... though perhaps styling hair was not his vocation. Really, Lily had told you, you only needed to look at his own hair to see that.

You didn't mind his newest project, and as you let him braid your hair by the fireplace, you desperately tried to pretend that it wasn't because him being so close made your heart beat a fierce drum against your ribs.

After a few minutes of quiet between the two of you, there was a lull in the conversation that you noticed even with your eyes closed in half sleep.

"Merlin, Prongs, could you be any more obvious?" Sirius' voice came from near the fire, a grin in his tone.

James fingers continued their work in your hair as he talked back to his friend.

"What?"

"That you are completely enamoured with our deer Y/N?" Even without looking at him, you could tell that Sirius was very pleased with his very much overused pun.

James tensed. Your breathing quickened slightly, though you didn't open your eyes.

Secretly, you wanted to hear what he would say.

"Piss off, Pads." He mumbled.

"It is quite obvious." Lily added in.

"Just a bit." Remus bit back the grin in his voice at his friends obvious discomfort.

"For fucks sake, guys!" James hissed quietly, clearly under the impression that you were asleep. "We are not dating."

"If you grew some balls, you would be." Sirius spoke, with murmurs of agreement from the others, apart from Mary, who you could still hear snoring.

James was quiet, for a moment.

"You'll have to tell her at some point, before someone else does." Lily spoke wisely. "Her and Amos are getting rather close, don't you think?"

James let out a scoff that was both a little defensive and a little bit worried.

"Y/N would never date that Hufflepuff."

"So you do admit that you like her?" Lily said triumphantly.

"Love her, more like." Sirius chipped in.

James' fingers were weaving once again in your hair, though perhaps a little bit less gentle than before.

"Just leave it." His tone indicated that he no longer wanted to discuss it, and the rest of the Gryffindor's clearly picked upon the tense tone he had adopted, because the conversation shifted quickly after that.

Though you desperately wanted to mull over what had just been said, you felt the pull of sleep drag you into unconsciousness. ————— "Love."

A gentle voice awoke you, with a slight shake of your shoulders. Blearily, you blinked, opening your eyes to the Common Room, which was much lighter than it had been when you closed your eyes. The fire had died in the fireplace, leaving only a few embers behind.

"Mmm?" You replied, rubbing sleep out of your eyes. You realised that you were still lying in James' lap, and a small flush crept up your cheeks.

"I've got to go to Quidditch practice. We’ve got the match this morning.” He said quietly, giving you a sorry look.

"Have you slept down here all night?" You questioned, sitting up and stretching, feeling your bones pop and crack after your slightly uncomfortable sleeping position.

He shrugged, standing up with a stretch, his jumper pulling up and exposing a sliver of his tanned stomach. He ruffled his hair, trying to rid his bed head.

"You were asleep. I couldn't wake you, you'd probably kill me." A ghost of a grin flickered onto his face.

"Sorry." You yawned, holding out a hand for him to pull your off the sofa. He obliged.

"I've really gotta go." He said regretfully, brushing his lips against your forehead in a typical James gesture.

"Love you, Prongsie." You spoke sleepily, making to go up the stairs of your dorm to get a few hours more sleep.

"Yeah... Love you too." His speech sounded almost painful to him, but you were too tired to register it.

In fact, you were too tired to even remember the conversation you had heard the previous night until you reached the top of the stairs, and by that time, James was gone.

#James potter #James Potter x reader #James Potter imagine #James potter fanfiction #James potter fanfic #James Potter oneshot #maruaders #marauders era #marauders imagine #marauders era imagine #marauders x reader #marauders x y/n #marauders x you #Harry Potter imagine #Harry Potter imagines #Harry Potter fanfiction #Harry Potter fandom

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your-brilliant-lady-m · 3 years

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Part 4 - Basic Concepts of Miraculous Ladybug: Glamour

You can call it however you want: kid's show logic, superhero disguise logic, magical girl show logic, cartoon laws, suspension of disbelief, etc. But the fact that nobody recognises Marinette, Adrien and others when they are suited up IS NOT BAD WRITING. It's one of the main laws of this genre. That's not because characters are stupid, okay? So, being frustrated that everyone in the show acts stupid about this "wearing a mask that covers only eyes" trope is strange. This criticism is not valid or fair.

But, this trope has to make sense in-universe as a worldbuilding and narrative element.

Miraculous doesn't give us much direct information on how glamour works. And in this case, I think we need both SHOW and TELL. Because if you don't establish the glamour rules clearly, you are going to run into problems and create unfortunate implications with your storytelling choices.

Appearance

Miraculous obviously gives our heroes magical glamour. In "Lady WiFi" we find out that masks can't be taken off. It's magic. No other explanation is needed.

Miraculous can slightly change the appearance of users (eyes, face shape, height and hairstyles). People can identify and notice the hairstyles of heroes (numerous Ladybug wigs, statue in Copycat). Jagged Stone points out the change of hair when he mistakes Chloe for Ladybug ("Antibug"). But it's just a costume. There is no magic that prevents Jagged from understanding that Chloe isn't Ladybug. So, how does it work? But it's forgivable because it's cartoon logic. Suspension of disbelief works here, I suppose. I won't judge this too harshly.

Glamour also obviously prevents people from making a connection that Marinette and Ladybug have identical hairstyles. So people know that Ladybug wears her hair in pigtails, but magic does not allow them to notice similarities.

Another important question. Does glamour work on Kwamis? Can they see who is behind the mask?

New York Special makes it clear that magic does not affect robots and they can see through glamour. Does that mean that Markov, AI built by Max, knows the identities of Ladybug and Chat Noir? And it's never addressed.

Plagg in "Frightningale" says that holders can subconsciously choose their superhero appearance. This is actually pretty interesting and I like this idea a lot. Except the show is not consistent with this. The transformation of Master Fu looks identical to Nathalie's. And we have seen how different from each other Ladybug and Black Cat holders looked in the past. At the same time, Master Fu and Nino have different takes on Turtle superhero suit.

Age Glamour

Does age glamour exist? Do people see Ladybug, Chat Noir and other heroes as adults even when they look like teenagers to the audience (their height and build are smaller even when they are transformed)? Is that why no one ever questions the fact that children nearly die on a daily basis?

I mentioned unfortunate implications earlier. Well, this is where they come into play. Let's talk about "Copycat". A lot of people discussed it before me, so I won't bore you with details.

When I watched "Copycat" for the first time Theo's crush on Ladybug didn't bother me, because I thought that he sees Ladybug as his peer, a girl who is about 20-23 years old. Theo is an artist, his character design is that of an adult. He has his own studio, its appearance indicates that he did serious commissions in the past. The guy has no idea that Ladybug is like 13.

But then we get "Heroes' Day" and "Ladybug". And Hawkmoth calls them "kids", which means that there is no age glamour. Others see Ladybug and Chat Noir as teenagers. Perhaps, other Miraculous users aren't affected by age glamour. Therefore regular people see all heroes as adults but other heroes are able to guess their age more or less correctly. But you must spell this thing out because the audience can interpret "Copycat" differently. If there is no age glamour, then Theo is crushing on a teenage girl and he is fully aware of this fact. And this doesn't look good for your show.

The "No Age Glamour" theory is further confirmed in "Sapotis" where Alya just straight up analyses voice recordings and says that Ladybug is a girl their age. If glamour exists then it should also cover technology. Kwami can't be photographed. Face and voice recognition software shouldn't be able to analyse transformed superheroes and detect their identities in any way.

Besides, after "Sapotis" Alya should definitely be sure that Ladybug is not 5000 years old (also not an adult), especially after she wore Miraculous herself and was one door away from detransformed Ladybug.

SEASON 4 UPDATE! There's no age glamour after all.

In "Furious Fu" Su Han calls Chat Noir a child without knowing his identity. It means that everyone knows their superheroes are teenagers. "Copycat" can't be saved from that, uh, subtext anymore. No one questions the danger of their job or the balance of their lives outside of the mask. No one doubts their competence after "Origins" ever again. No one becomes annoyed after being bossed around by two teenagers in spandex. You had many opportunities to drop these details into the narrative. Someone could have been akumatized over this (I will not be ordered around by some magical kids!).

I don't know why writers decided not to use at least this idea and slightly adjust "Copycat" if they got rid of the age glamour completely. It can be explained as kid's show logic, but unfortunately, I'm reluctant to do it. If many characters sympathise with akuma victims on-screen, why not with the teenage superheroes who must fight them?

New York Special had this weird focus on collateral damage out of nowhere (the damage done by sentimonster Robostus) and yet it has 0 effect on the main story. No one in Paris is pissed that their 2 teenage protectors weren't there.

Ironically, "Furious Fu" and that one remark made by Su Han also created unfortunate implications for other moments in the show. Just hear me out. Apparently, Jagged Stone wrote a "thank you" song for Ladybug knowing that she is 13-15 year old child back in "Pixelator". Fandom is more than happy to roast Lila for lying about saving Jagged Stone's cat and him writing her a "thank you" song. Fandom claims that Lila's tale could harm Jagged's reputation, when he wrote a song for teenage Ladybug several weeks prior. Meanwhile, in-universe this lie is 100% believable.

If we put on "realism glasses", then both this whole song situation and Theo's crush in "Copycat" have uncomfortable implications. However, the show's canon can't be viewed and criticised through "realism glasses". I admit that bits and pieces of my criticisms are affected by these "glasses", but, ultimately, I'm trying to be fair and concentrate only on things that can't be justified by "cartoon logic and worldbuilding".

Could the existence of age glamour solve this problem of unfortunate implications and other concerns mentioned above? YES. Is it better for the narrative? YES. Is essential for the story? NOT QUITE. Could the absence of age glamour be called an irredeemable storytelling flaw? NO.

Disclaimer: On a side note, only older audience can notice these implications. Children, the target audience, most likely won't understand this subtext simply because they don't have enough experience. So, perhaps, this criticism is unfair, because these moments only look weird to me as an adult. It's like an adult joke in a cartoon that you don't get until you reach a certain age.

There's nothing technically wrong with adult writing a "thank you" song for a teenager. It's just an expression of gratitude. However, unfortunately, we live in a world, where adults normally wouldn't write songs for teens to express gratitude only. In real life similar actions would imply pedophilia and would be actively scorned by the public. No one would risk their reputation like that even if their intentions were genuinely pure and sincere. But this show can't be viewed through "realism glasses", because it's a cartoon and in certain cases we as the audience must use suspension of disbelief and pretend that certain things are possible for plot to happen.

Su Han also wants to give Ladybug and Black Cat to adults. Why didn't Master Fu do this then? Writers don't give us any explanation. Throughout the show we never question this up until the moment it's revealed that adults don't have time-limited powers. Then comes "Furious Fu". Story suddenly becomes self-aware here. Because apparently nothing prevented Fu from giving the most powerful Miraculous to adults who won't have time limit and will be more effective against Hawkmoth (see part 3 for more details).

I have a very good example of Age Glamour done right. It works in the story. There is no confusion or unfortunate implications. There is like one plothole connected to the glamour (it's been years and I still can't forgive them for Cornelia and Caleb) but otherwise, it's a pretty solid example of both show and tell. Clearly, writers wanted to avoid uncomfortable implications which are present in "Copycat". I am talking about W.I.T.C.H. comic books and animated series.

If you are not familiar with it, I'll give you a brief explanation. The story follows 5 girls, the Guardians of Kandrakar who are chosen to protect their world and parallel ones from evil. They receive magical powers from the amulet known as the Heart of Kandrakar. Their powers are based on elements: fire, water, earth, air and energy. Our main characters are about 13-15 years old. In the animated series they are younger and they attend middle school, making them 12-14 years old. But the transformation makes them look 18-20. They look like young women to each other and to other people. At the same time, people can recognise them, their looks and voice don't change. Most people don't know that they are really teenagers when they are not transformed and these people don't know that magic can make them look older. That's why everyone treats Guardians like adults when they are transformed. Comics establish this fact in the very beginning. In first issues characters state that they look older, we are also shown this multiple times.

In fact, one of the first side plots revolves around the fact that Irma uses her powers to sneak into the disco club to meet up with her crush. Irma is 13 at the beginning of the series, she is a high school freshman. Her crush, Andrew Hornby is a senior guy 17-18 years old. Irma has liked him for a long time and wants to impress him, so she decides to be clever about this. She transforms into her Guardian form of the 18-year-old girl, hides her wings, sneaks out to the club after her parents are asleep without any problem, and meets Andrew, who obviously doesn't recognise Irma in this girl who looks about his age. Smitten Andrew offers her a ride and 13-year-old Irma doesn't understand the implication of that offer, so she accepts. And, obviously, he decides that she is interested in more than just a ride home, since she agreed, and the comic implies that he fully intended for them to have sex in the backseat of his car. But Irma understands the implication only when Andrew tries to kiss her. She panics and turns him into a frog. And she actually pulls this "I need to look mature" trick more than once over the course of the series.

It's not the only situation where this age difference is handled well and makes sense. People who know the main characters in everyday life remark on their older appearance during transformation. Sometimes people flirt with Guardians when they are transformed. In one of the side-novels centred around Cornelia, she is worried that the prince of the realm they helped to save from famine would try to marry her. That never happens, but Cornelia actually brainstorms with her friends about how to tell the prince that she is really 15.

There are many other plot points where this happens, but I think that you got the idea. I really like how "Age Glamour" was handled in W.I.T.C.H.

How do we fix this? Create the situations where people offhandedly mention "Age Glamour" in the presence of Marinette or Adrien, use Kwami for this.

"Don't worry, dear. Chat Noir and Ladybug are adults, who know what they are doing. I am sure that they will handle this. "

Theo could say: "Oh, I wonder which university Ladybug goes to?"

"So, does that mean that other people see us as grown-ups, Tikki?"

A few words and boom, problem solved. Then allow the "show don't tell" rule do the rest.

#miraculous ladybug #ml #miraculous analysis #miraculous meta #ml meta #ml analysis #miraculous transformations #miraculous critical #miraculous ladybug critical #miraculous glamour #superhero glamour #miraculoustalesofladybugandcatnoir

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sometipsygnostalgic · 3 years

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Steven Universe - How the show fails to handle emotion, irrationality, and trauma

I have a better understanding of why SU is the way it is now. Why it is very dramatic, and why the characters often act in ways that are entirely out of proportion

When making a critical post about the handling of Flame Princess in Adventure Time, /u/samhadj01 attributed part of the problem to be that Rebecca Sugar was responsible for Flame Princess’s conceptualizing, and wrote her and Finn the same way that she writes SU characters - in a heightened emotional state, where they are feeling the EXTREMES of their emotions at all times, yelling at the top of their voice when angry, crying their eyes out when sad, and hurting each other. The reddit user said this made it difficult for the writers to figure out where to take Flame Princess next.

I challenged this reddit post’s claim that Rebecca writing FP’s first episodes meant that the crew didn’t know what to do with her. There is a lot of oversight in the AT crew, and Rebecca was just one cog in the wheel, even if she was full of ideas that ended up getting used. If she came up with a bad idea it would be the responsibility of her colleagues to put it back on track, and I don’t even think FP’s initial portrayal is the problem - the issue is she was completely marginalized after the fact, and bizarrely rewritten to lose her early immaturity without there being enough progression into that new stage. Following this she was basically written out of the show, with the exception of when she’d be useful to show off another character’s development (Finn, PB, even Cinnamon Bun).

WITH THAT BEING SAID, I thought Samhadj made a good point about SU.

Rebecca Sugar always loved writing music into her stories because it was the purest form of expression. You can hear how much love she puts into her music. She wanted to create a show where she could really sell emotions, where she could fill it up with songs that the characters would sing to express themselves and their troubled feelings. She wanted all the characters to be expressive, emotional, angry. She wanted Steven to be a character that helps everyone else learn to deal with their emotions, much like how her brother Steven helped her, as she’s said before.

The issue is that, in order to facilitate this, she would need to write characters who would BE in these conflicts, feel heightened emotions at all times.

So Rebecca conceptualized the gem species.

Even though they take the form of adults, the gems are incredibly stunted. They remain the same for thousands of years. They are not equipped to process emotional trauma, having lived in a society where you have to cover up all your flaws and feelings at the risk of being shattered. The show follows several Crystal Gems who rebelled against this system, but still haven’t figured out what it means to be free from this systematic oppression. They’re trying to live peacefully, but they’re prisoners still, in their hearts.

Steven is the catalyst for change that points out the things that upset them, and forces them to deal with their emotions. He acts as emotional support and encourages the crystal gems to grow. Steven also has much growing up to do himself. He has to confront the truth about what it means to BE a crystal gem, to have inherited the gem of the person who started the revolution, and Steven over time learns how messed up everything is. He is overcome with the desire to fix it, while still learning about himself.

Why is this sort of storytelling a problem?

For the characters to have heightened emotions all the time, it means they have to keep getting in conflicts that reveal these emotions. It is these conflicts that make the show feel overdramatic and edgy - how characters will lash out and hurt each other, all the time, because they had a bad day, or something reminded them of something that hurt them.

More urgently, who they are lashing out against. While the Crystal Gems hurting each other in season 1 makes sense, it is when they start taking things out on Steven himself that things become straight up toxic.

Steven has to bear the brunt of EVERYONE’s problems, AND his own. He chases after Pearl in “Rose’s Scabbard” and nearly falls to his death while she ignores him, he fights with Amethyst when she is insecure about Jasper, he has to deal with Ruby and Sapphire’s fighting. He has to deal with all the townies and their stupid conflicts as well, Lars and Sadie’s fighting, so on. And ON TOP OF ALL THIS, people are trying to kill him all the time!!!!! But he is getting absolutely no meaningful support, and this is obvious, because the show itself acknowledges this later on.

You start to ask the question, is this even worth doing? The characters around Steven display incredible immaturity, and after a certain point, they stop feeling like heroes. They feel like leeches who are taking advantage of a young boy.

Things get RIDICULOUS in the final season. Even after the episodes where Amethyst acknowledged the shitty status quo of everyone leaning on him, Steven then has to deal with the emotional problems of the Diamonds themselves, who it turns out lashed out the entire GALAXY because they didn’t know how to talk about their feelings?! For millions of years?!?! To be turned around by one teenage boy, even after a revolution where many of their gems expressed why they were wrong???!!!

I think it was these final episodes of Steven Universe that completely shattered any remaining suspension of disbelief about the diamonds.

I’m no alien to ancient, immortal characters in charge of millions demonstrating incredible immaturity. Look at Princess Bubblegum and Marceline. Marceline would lean closer to the Amethyst side of the spectrum where she lashes out against everyone, while PB would be on the Pearl or Diamonds side where she’d pretend to act all rational and coolheaded and then do something insanely bad like crash a wedding or manipulate children. Pretty yikes, even up to the finale. However, the difference is that AT is a more lighthearted wacky show where immaturity can slide for jokes, and most of the issues these characters have are inward facing. They identify and work on their problems themselves, with some support but not much interference from outside. They also do NOT act crazy all the damn time, and have plenty of moments before, during, and after their development where they are fully supportive friends. I enjoyed learning more about these characters and their pasts, because the immaturity never broke my suspension of disbelief.

The DIAMONDS, on the other hand, never get any sort of character development. I was excited to learn more about their creation, and how they came to be these insanely powerful beings that controlled a fascist society where emotion is not allowed. Why is it this way? Why do they want to keep it like this?

We never find out. We just see Steven embarrassing White Diamond after she attempts to murder him, and then she immediately goes full 180 redemption. It makes no damn sense!

Steven Universe Future attempts to address the issues with everyone Steven knows being emotionally dependent on him, but Future forgoes genuine themes about healing in favour of its edgy focus on how Steven has become “damaged”.

I was shocked watching SU Future’s first few episodes. I was astounded that the show would deconstruct itself so thoroughly, and have Steven address the exact things that were on MY mind. He realised that he’d been used.

How ballsy is that for the show to have the protagonist literally tear it to pieces in the final few episodes?

However, any hopes for Steven directly addressing these issues, communicating with his friends and HEALING were dashed about half way through, when he only kept escalating. Steven got so outraged that he shattered Jasper, and attempted to kill White Diamond while also injuring himself. He started to see himself as a monster. He becomes a murderer. He turns into a kaiju at the end since that’s how his perception of himself is different.

I was really disappointed that the show had wasted its entire runtime to build this up.

The emotion that Rebecca Sugar was trying to capture was Steven’s pain, anger, the disconnect he had with his friends.

Future did not spend ANY time in demonstrating that Steven’s friends were acknowledging his pain. In fact, quite the opposite - they kept dismissing all of his feelings about Ruby and Aquamarine, and Greg was revealed as The Literal Worst when he thought his perfectly normal conservative upbringing was way worse than Steven literally getting tortured by aliens every other day and having no friends or education. When Steven has his breakdown, they all cROWD him and start yelling at him. They have absolutely no regard for Steven’s boundaries at all. It’s almost like Steven’s friends are P-zombies at this stage.

I did not like how Steven was portrayed as a dangerous, out-of-control killer. It’s not just that he SAW himself as this - it’s literally what he was. You can do bad things because of your trauma, but it won’t turn you into a monster. If you act like a monster, that is your responsibility.

And then the series ends with the hug, but we do not see Steven’s actual healing process or reconnecting with his friends. We only get a brief goodbye episode.

After watching Obsidian, I cannot help but compare these scenarios. Obsidian was about Marceline healing from her emotional trauma. It was still very much a part of her, but she was learning to recognise when it was damaging her life, and communicate with others about it. It’s about learning to accept your cracks.

If SU Future had been about dealing with trauma properly and healing, it could have been the best series on Cartoon Network, and fully redeemed the weaknesses of the original show.

However, Rebecca and the SU crew decided to focus too much on Steven’s pain, and Future ended up exacerbating the issues of the show.

#steven universe #steven universe future #adventure time

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life-rewritten · 3 years

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TharnType 7 Years: Love (For Better and For Worse)

After watching TharnType Episode 5, At first, I was surprised; the underlying overarching plot of the marriage disagreement and Fiat's journey to becoming our villain, was more or less not involved in the story this episode. There were clues as always, but not as focused in the subtext as it usually is. Actually, Mame focused this episode on the dynamics of our couples again, especially our Ukes (Type, Fiat, Phu and Khun) reasons for why they love the person they are paired with. We see more similarities and mirroring with all four couples this episode focusing on; being there for each other, showing assurance and confidence in each other, and exhibiting trust and security with what they have. The relationship dynamic of our couples is like marriage, where the two are in it for better or worse.

For better: When they realise that moment that this person is always going to be by their side, protecting them, comforting them and loving them no matter what, this real confidence that what they have won't be broken.

For worse: Because their partner no matter what loves them even during their flawed moments, is patient, caring and sweet with them even when they are not that way to them. Our Ukes find this joy and comfort in understanding that they are fortunate to have their semes. So this episode instead of focusing on the drama or conflict upcoming (there were still foreshadowings), this episode instead focused on the why of it all; why our couples are going to be together, why they love each other and why they're each other's person no matter what: Let's get into it.

For better or For worse: A strong bond that's unbreakable no matter what.

Tharn and Type:

Unconditional and Uncontrollable

I mean we already know all of this about this two. They've been in it for better or for worse from the beginning they first fell for each other. Tharn and Type are so committed to each other, from the start, they gave their all to each other, they accepted it was them till the end, once they overcame their obstacles.

For Tharn, he knew it'll always be Type because he can't imagine anyone else, and he was assured. Type won't leave him ever. For Type, Tharn was the reason for why he got through his past psychological obstacles and realised what he was, he accepted himself, his sexuality and chose Tharn as the only person for him. It's why in this episode he goes straight to Nana and repeats that to her.

For Tharn and Type for them their sexuality is each other, their preference is each other, no one else but them. Tharn is for Type as Type is for Tharn. No one else, nobody can compare. I love it; it's one of the reasons why I love these two so much. It's also why some of the audience may see their dynamic and deem their romance as toxic and that they are bad for each other because they get to see the most worst versions and defective parts of TharnType when they're with each other, but that's not a bad thing.

TharnType may fight, but it's because they have this unconditional trust with each other, where they can be themselves no matter what and still love each other. At his worst Tharn loved Type and embraced and accepted and waited for him. And at Tharn's worst Type will do the same time and time again. Remember these two have chosen each other, no matter what their issues are (like marriage disagreement) they are still willing to fight the world and back for each other, they're not letting go. That's why one of their promises to each other is that they're never going to break up. The amount of love, trust and need to be with each other these two have is insane, they're each other's soul mate, person and they know that they are confident in that, and they'll keep on protecting that. This is ironic because as mentioned repeatedly, they have different ways of wanting to protect what they have, in doing so they misunderstand each other and instead of protecting what they have, they end up just causing more cracks to it.

Cracks and Conflicts

This episode we didn't see any cracks formed as before, but there were still hints that it would happen. Tharn is still being manipulative behind the scenes and still is trying to find ways to get Type to accept the proposal (he's making plans to make him jealous, working with friends to make him more acceptable to the marriage). Still, Type is too focused on what's going on now (his job issues, parental disapproval of Tharn).

As this episode shows the pressures of all of it are bothering him, we see his reaction to this when finally tired of everything not going well; he shouts, he's rude, he says hurtful words and shatters and explodes. And that's foreshadowing that if he keeps feeling pushed or forced to do something he doesn't think is crucial right now (marriage) he'll explode at Tharn the same way he did this episode with the same words 'You don't me, you don't know what I'm going through' except this time it won't be easy to apologise and fix it. That's why it's so worrying when these signs show up for their relationship.

But I do also need to mention when focused on the marriage disagreement; Type is no longer as against it as he was. In fact, he's for it, but he has some stuff he wants to deal with before he finally accepts, he still wants more evidence of security/safety from the external world if he chooses to marry Tharn, he has a checklist, he's trying to ensure things are secure as much as possible, trying to prevent any issues that could happen with people (a safe space at work, his father accepting Tharn, Tharn's family reputation being safe no matter what,) before he accepts it. Remember he already thinks he and Tharn are married no matter what, so it's just the involvement of people and exposing that to others that scares him.

A Safe Space

However, with TharnType, no matter how bad they get one thing stays the same. Unconditional love and support. Type recognised that again as always this episode. He saw Tharn's care, protectiveness, worry, and he felt safe and loved no matter who he was. Thing is we saw him being so stressed and uncomfortable and burdened by everything happening, especially the boss plot. It's fascinating when you analyse how he speaks about the boss to other people: he's polite, he's quieter, and tries to be less angry when he says he's tired to Khun and to Phu. He holds his composure.

But with Tharn, he tried to avoid making him worried about it and tried not to burden him with it, but at his lowest and most stressed and anxious, he broke down and lashed out. But it's because he's with Tharn he lashed out. Because he can be his self with Tharn, even if it's awful, mean or rude. He's confident and secure that Tharn will accept him no matter what he says or does. And Tharn does precisely that, he walks away, and returns with a coffee and a promises to stay by Type's side when Type apologises.

I also want to mention that Tharn is Type's safe space; Tharn's presence revives his strength and is his source of peace and comfort (this is the same for every couple in this show). The whole episode he holds his composure, he's angry, tired, stressed but just by Tharn running to show him he's worried (after Phu texted him) you see Type's face light up, and you see him let all his worries go as he lays on Tharn's shoulder. That's his safe space, being with Tharn, holding onto Tharn, but also it's the confidence and assurance again from Tharn that he'll always be by Type's side.

Type is comforted by the secureness of his relationship with Tharn. No matter what goes on with other people, Tharn will always be worried and caring about him. Tharn will always be his strength and comfort. Tharn will always be protective and his rock. It's something innate with them; it's uncontrollable the love they have for each other, it's something that they both automatically are to each other: peace, comfort and strength. And it's also unconditional because their love knows no bounds, it's Tharn that Type wants no matter what, and this is the reason why because even when he doesn't know what ails Type, he still manages to be the one who helps him deal with it by just being there. Yet, even when he's attacked at and hurt by Type, he manages to stay and be supportive and help him deal with it by just being there. And this is the same for Tharn vice versa when he's at his weakest. This is who Tharn and Type are to each other, for better or for worse.

Leo and Fiat:

Gratitude and Certitude

With Leo and Fiat, it's the same but also different. Unlike Tharn, Leo is not as forthcoming with his protection and care, but he's instinctual and secretive with it. But like Type, Fiat knows what Leo is to him. Pause, Unlike Type, Fiat isn't fully confident in Leo's feelings for him and so wanders a lot, but he's grateful and happy just to have Leo by his side. And Leo is confident that what they have won't be ruined even if Fiat falls for someone. Let me explain more.

This episode was weird for me because the last episode we saw Leo realise that he wasn't okay with Fiat and Type getting to know each other, he noticed he was slowly no longer being the focus of Fiat's attention, and this irked him. So I was surprised to see that he'd returned back being quiet, secretive and just trying to ignore Fiat's obsession with Type. He'd gone back to pretending he was okay with it, and he'd reverted to just thinking it's Fiat being Fiat. This was annoying because this episode is when Fiat really starts to fall for Type. Don't get me wrong we didn't see a lot of Fiat and Type together this episode, but that's not the point before Type was just a quest for Fiat to win over. Fiat wasn't actually in love with Type at that time; he just wanted attention and a distraction from his feelings for Leo. This episode because Leo kept quiet and didn't try to stop it happening by saying something. Fiat just kept on spending more time talking to Type, seeing Type and falling for Type. It's no longer a game to Fiat anymore; he likes being with Type.

For people who are hating on him, he hasn't done anything wrong. He still thinks Type is single, and he just has a crush on someone who he thinks is great the more he spends time with him. Type makes Fiat giddy and happy, and so Fiat is just acting like someone with a crush. The person at fault here is Leo because if Leo comes out and tells Fiat, he's not okay with it cause he's jealous, Fiat would stop paying attention to Type.

That's what was being shadowed in their scene this episode. Look at this way:

Fiat's friends give Leo the boyfriend role; they ask him about Fiat because they know he's always by his side, protective and can speak for him if he's distracted.

They tease Leo about what he and Fiat are. Leo again pushes it off and pretends it's nonsense.

Fiat is distracted, not listening but always gets pulled out, from his focus by Leo touching or doing something for him.

Leo cooly takes away the liver on Fiat's plate so automatically, so instinctively he acts like it's nothing but look at Fiat's face;

He's shocked, and again grateful and in love. It's the same stare he gives Leo each time he feels touched. Fiat is so distracted by that action; he proceeds to drop the phone and pay attention to Leo by giving him food (the actual cooked ones whilst he gave the uncooked ones to his friends purposely). He'd been distracted, and his attention was back on Leo. It's' foreshadowing, Fiat might be distracted by his crush on Type, but Leo is still able to pull him away by just showing him affection or love. What Fiat wants from Leo is love, and he appreciates Leo being by his side.

He, later on, ensures Leo knows how grateful he is. But again Leo pushes it away and pretends it's nothing. And Fiat plays along and is so happy that he's always there protecting him. Leo is secretly pleased that Fiat is paying attention to him and proceeds to take the phone and again distracts Fiat from Type for just one day. When they're alone, Fiat becomes soft-hearted and sweet with Leo; he also mentions the assurance he has that Leo would still nag, protect, and care for him even if he was being annoying and spoilt.

No matter what

This is their own for better or for worse. Fiat realised like Type that Leo is going to always be there by his side, automatically Fiat is one of Leo's priority (and he loves being that), with Leo he trusts that he would be safe, taken care of and pampered. He also knows that even at his worst self, Leo is going to be patient, understanding and also can stop him from being stressed or upset. Remember he told Leo he goes crazy when he's not there to be his emotional support. It's the same as TharnType, the automatic comfort that Tharn and Leo bring Type and Fiat is recognised and relied on a lot by them.

Fiat knows Leo will always be there, and he trusts that he will always care (even when he feels hurt that Leo never sees him as a romantic interest). He's okay with being friends with Leo, as long as he has Leo by his side. But it's important to note that if Leo just shows Fiat love, and confesses to him, Fiat wouldn't be our villain, all he's ever wanted is for Leo to take him seriously as a romantic interest. It's Leo who keeps pretending that what they are is just friends.

Pretense and Protection

It's Leo who doesn't want to seem vulnerable to Fiat (he doesn't want him to even know the reason why he took the liver of his plate was because he cares for him) he just doesn't like not being seen as cool and different from other guys, Fiat has been with. It seems like he thinks Fiat gets bored when people become clingy or fall for him, (basically whenever he wins people's heart/ the chase). Remember he's seen Fiat with so many people before and he's seen him get bored and stop chasing after them.

I think this is the reason why he refuses to let Fiat know he has feelings. After all, if he does, it'll make their friendship weird when Fiat plays of his feelings like it's nothing or when Fiat's attention or flirty energy dims because he's finally won over Leo's heart. He doesn't want to be discarded like the others. So he also wants to just keep their relationship unofficial without crossing the line. The more he pushes Fiat's feelings or what they have away; the more Fiat is sure he'll never like him that way, and the more Fiat becomes our villain.

For better, Fiat and Leo know that what they have is not going anyway, they both trust that they'd be there no matter what. Fiat sees Leo as his safe space, he feels protected automatically by Leo, and he knows he can be his real self with Leo and Leo will stay. Leo is also his source of comfort and peace.

For worse: Fiat knows that Leo has seen him in his worst forms, his tantrums, his anger, his spoilt personality, and Leo still stays and pampers and takes care of him. Leo is the only person who can deal with Fiat and who can make Fiat calm down. But for worse is also the fact that Fiat will keep on being friends with and protecting what they have despite the fact that he's felt hurt by Leo pushing his feelings away. The for worse part is even though it hurts to stay and think about what he has with Leo (before Type) he'll still choose what they have over not having anything at all. Vice versa for Leo.

Champ and Khun:

Mindful and Careful

Champ and Khun surprisingly also mirrored our couples this time. They're more different, they're softer and have a different dynamic sometimes. Whilst LeoFiat and TharnType know what they are to each other and have chosen to stay with each other no matter what, ChampKhun are just starting. They're still in the first phases of their relationship. But Like the others, Champ shows care and worry for Khun. He makes Khun feel protected, and cared for because he tells him he cares, and he worries. With Khun, we can see he has this lack of self-esteem, for some reason he feels like he's not good enough, and he always gets guilty and worried that he's not likeable, but Champ automatically assures him each time they spend together that he's cute, he's worried and he cares.

Khun may not know where he and Champ stand, he has feelings, but he's not sure what Champ feels, but he does feel secure knowing that Champ is pretty protective and caring to him. In this episode he felt stressed and tired because of patients and work but being with Champ helped him take away those burdens; he found himself being noticed and cared for by Champ who also noticed he was busy, overworked and stressed.

Self doubt vs Trust

So like the others, Khun also developed a sort of safe space with Champ, as his source of comfort and peace, despite the pressures and business of the day he finds time to see Champ at the restaurant and spend time with him, and that helps him be distracted from work for a while.

Champ is different from Tharn and Leo, whilst Tharn is protective and frank about everything because he's always been that way and Leo is more secretive and hidden with his intentions. Champ is just automatically defensive and caring over Khun obliviously. He has no intentions, but he finds himself drawn to that instinctively because he thinks Khun is cute.

For Better: Champ and Khun like being with each other; Khun always gets reassured there's something there, but he also trusts that Champ cares for him a lot. Being with Champ makes him feel less stressed and protected, and also he can be his self without feeling hated or anxious. Champ has a food buddy with Khun (that's what he wished for), he finds happiness and comfort when Khun spends time with him, and he feels confident because Khun likes his food.

For worse: Khun has self-esteem issues and has a lot of self-doubts typically, he also feels clumsy and annoying sometimes, but Champ finds him cute despite him thinking he's not that great. Champ knows he's dumb and feels less confident about himself as his peers when it comes to love, but he feels reassured because Khun keeps on wanting to hang out with him and eat with him.

Cir and Phu:

Endurance and Assurance

Cir and Phu also showed up this episode, and I thought they were precious. With them; they've been together for a while, they communicate, and they have a very healthy relationship. But if you listened to the dialogue, they also showcased the same pattern this episode. Phu feels assured that Cir loves him no matter what because Cir is by his side and he's confident in what they have, he feels like he can endure the fact that Cir's mum disapproves of their relationship. For him, because Cir said he shouldn't worry, he doesn't, he trusts Cir would fix it. Phu is very secure with what he and Cir have that he's overly affectionate in public (unlike TharnType) and he's outspoken to Cir about what he feels (Unlike LeoFiat). Because these two ensure that they communicate and let the other know how they feel, even when Cir feels possessive and protective when he gets jealous of Type and Phu, he trusts that it's nothing and moves on even though he's sulking. He ensures Phu that he's his priority and that he cares and he worries for him (same as all the other semes) and Phu finds comfort and happiness knowing that. For Phu, Cir goes out and tries to find what he wants even when it's sold out, it makes him happy and feels loved. He finds him being jealous cute and also another sign of assurance that he's cherished.

For better: These two love and let each other how much they do with communication, affection and actions. They both feel loved and protected together.

For worse: Phu likes when Cir is insecure and jealous because he feels loved, and Cir assures Phu that he loves him no matter what even if his mum doesn't like their relationship.

Mame, this episode decided to focus on the positives of the relationships of all our couples in this show. And it's beautiful to see the dynamics. For better or for worse shows this bond/love that is so strong, and so beautiful, it's incredible what these couples have or are going to have with each other. Being able to find the person who accepts you at your worst, who you can be your true self with, who you feel loved and comforted with, who you matter to more than anything else is so great, and enviable. Mame knows that love isn't easy, but love is also so great between two people who are meant to be; it's automatic, protective and comforting. We all are human we have our flaws, we make our mistakes, and we aren't perfect, it's nice to have a show that shows a relationship between flawed characters who grow and get better because they have someone who pushes them to, but also a show that reveals relationships that are so precious and so dedicated to each other, that it makes you feel like crying and wanting the same. I like TharnType 7 years, this episode was great, and I still enjoy this show very much. Soon we'll stop focusing on this sweet stuff, and our characters flaws will quickly become a problem, but they'll grow, they'll change, and they'll be better because they've found each other for better or for worse.

More Tharn Type Analysis: Masterpost Check under Tharn and Type Here

#tharntype #tharntype 7 years of love #tharntype 2: 7 years of love #tharn and type #tharntype the series #thai bl #mewgulf #bl series #bl drama #december #cwg #mew suppasit #gulf kanawut

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lailyn · 3 years

Text

The Way We Were

The knock on the door came late evening, so faint and hesitant Loki almost brushed it off as a product of his overactive imagination. On days like this, when the sun was low and the birds had settled to roost, Loki’s melancholy often paid him a visit. Hearing things was not unheard of.

There was the knock again. It sounded more resolute this time.

The banging and clanging from the kitchen ceased momentarily and Tony’s head bobbed up from behind the island counter. “Do you mind getting the door, babe? I kinda have my hands full at the moment.”

Loki rolled his eyes. He waved away their daughter’s toys and righted the cushions on the couch before trudging grudgingly to greet whoever was at the door. For some reason, the journey from the living room to the front door felt long and never-ending, his feet heavy and his heart heavier.

His wards were holding, but he felt far from safe. He held onto the small frame tighter and closer to him.

“Stephen.”

“Loki.”

“I...wasn’t expecting you.” Loki's grip around his daughter tightened.

"Mama, is he a bad man?" He heard her whisper in his ear, and just like that, the tension drained out of Loki like water.

"No." Loki loosened his grip around her. "No, baby, he's not."

“Stephen, my man! You made it!” Out of nowhere, Tony appeared, and the trance broke instantly; Loki took an abrupt step back as his husband reached over to give their guest a hug.

“Tony.” Stephen’s smile was warm and genuine, as was the affectionate squeeze he gave Tony’s shoulder. “It’s been a while.”

“Yes, we’ve really moved out of your jurisdiction,” Tony said with a roll of his eyes. “Wellness checks probably aren't warranted as much.”

“Not when you’ve moved upstate, no, not so much,” Stephen said serenely.

Upon realising that none of them had moved in the last thirty seconds since Loki answered the door, Tony balked, “Are we just going to stand here like a bunch of idiots? Get your ass inside!”

“Husband,” Loki admonished him, doing his best to cover both their daughter’s ears with one hand.

“Oops.” Tony shooed them all in. He could no more bear the awkwardness than Loki could pretend that they were nothing but old friends.

He closed the heavy mahogany doors behind them. “I’d offer to take your coat, but…”

Much to everyone's amusement, the Cloak of Levitation had flown across the threshold to make itself at home, pretending to socialise with the other outer garments on the rack behind the door.

The toddler in Loki's arms squealed in delight.

Stephen admired the cabin, casting an appreciative eye at the high, lofty ceiling with its great timber beams, and the great roaring fireplace. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

“I didn’t think the neoclassic, minimalist luxe look was going to work but you know our dearest Loki. He always knows what he wants.” The look of pure adoration on Tony's face was something to behold.

A soft blush coloured Loki’s cheeks, his “Stop it,” half-hearted and weak.

Stephen's fingers hovered over the lone Japanese ceramic tea bowl on a display table. "Edo period?"

Loki’s eyes were unreadable. "I imagine so."

Stephen would recognise the rough, rustic finish anywhere; the crack that went down all the way from its rim to its bottom was unmistakable. He remembered the hours Loki had spent studying the gold lacquer with which the crack was filled, and he remembered keeping him company.

"Wabi-sabi." Stephen nodded in approval. "The art of seeking beauty in imperfection."

Loki's stoic face gave an imperceptible spasm.

“Espérance, darling, be a dear and go upstairs for a short nap, okay?” Loki pressed a kiss to the little girl's cheek. "Daddy and I are going to talk to Uncle Stephen for a while. We'll call you once dinner's ready."

"I'll take her," Tony offered. "Why don't you take Stephen outside, babe? I've put out some hors d'oeuvre on the patio."

"She's grown so big." Stephen marvelled at the sight of his friends' eldest daughter as she climbed up the stairs one step at a time, clutching the rail in one hand, her father's hand in the other.

"That's one way of telling time." Loki said coolly. "Watching children grow."

Without another word, Loki turned and led Stephen onto the patio, where several chairs had been laid out on the deck overlooking the picturesque lake below.

Loki had no sooner sat on the chair that offered the best view of the mountains on the other side of the house than the first hum of a familiar tune began to play from the various speakers hidden in the trees around the property.

Tony must have tinkered with the controls inside the house, and Loki heaved a sigh, forlorn and pensive.

He did not blame his husband for the poor choice. It had nothing to do with Barbra Streisand’s metier as a singer, as legendary as it was.

"I could listen to this song over and over if not for the memories."

Stephen took a seat on the other side of the coffee table. It was a comfortable, yet companionable distance. "It's always been your favourite."

"The song or the film?"

Now that Stephen really thought about it, he had no idea. "You never told me."

Loki allowed himself a wistful smile. "You hated it. The ending."

"I don't understand why they couldn't be together."

"They were too different."

"They were their own person, sure. But they loved each other. They should have been able to make it work."

"Are we still talking about Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford?" Loki eyed the man sitting next to him. "Or are you talking about us?"

Stephen felt like kicking himself. This was not why he came. He was not going to ruin what was left of this fragile friendship lamenting lost loves and what-ifs. He did not have many friends left, in this world or off it.

"We were too similar," he managed.

Loki snorted. "Polarity has nothing to do with compatibility. What repels does not always repel. What attracts does not always last."

"That is true," Stephen agreed reluctantly.

"You Midgardians look to the stars for guidance, do you not? The alignment and such, to see if one is right for another?”

“Certain cultures do, yeah.”

“I was not born under these stars, Doctor." Loki raised his head to the heavens. "So your theory is flawed."

Stephen knew better than to challenge an idea when there was no point in winning. He had lost so much already. A wiser man would argue that losing was not the same as sacrificing; if done for the greater good, it was noble and worthwhile and who cared if he was alone? If his bed was cold every night?

As long as Loki was safe, warm and loved, Stephen cared not one damn bit.

"It's pretty cold tonight, huh. How about a drink?"

Two steaming cups suddenly appeared on the coffee table.

Loki raised an eyebrow. "Pumpkin spice latte? You hate this stuff."

Stephen flashed him a smile, boyish and familiar. He offered no explanation for why it looked so sad. Perhaps he did not realise he was wearing it. "Not anymore."

A sudden splashing sound and a whiff of bourbon had Loki shooting out a hand to cover the rim of his cup before Stephen could offer to do the same to his drink. "I'm alright, thank you."

In his shock, Stephen nearly dropped the bottle with a fumbling gasp, and his host turned to give him a sharp look.

In profile, Loki’s looks had appeared untouched by age. But now, Stephen could see the passage of time in the seaglass eyes, how their piercing brilliance cast a sallow hue over a complexion so pale he could see the veins in Loki’s temples.

"Does Tony know?"

Loki's forehead furrowed as though the question puzzled him, but it smoothened as he looked down at the hand he did not realise he was holding to his stomach.

"I was planning to tell him the good news tonight."

Stephen closed his eyes. Finally he knew why he had come, and why he must now leave.

He recapped the bottle of liquor slowly. He banished it to his secret pocket dimension in exchange for another object, one he had coveted for his own but now only knew was only given to him for safekeeping.

Slowly he stood. As if answering his silent call, the Cloak of Levitation flew through one of the open windows upstairs to settle around his shoulders.

Loki tore his eyes away. He could not look at Stephen's majestic silhouette for too long.

"Must you leave so soon?" He asked lightly. "You'll break Tony's heart."

The foliage of red and gold here was as beautiful as the one Stephen and Loki once shared a long, long time ago.

He pressed in Loki's hand a memento of that time, a souvenir from one of the many Shinto shrines Loki had dragged him to up and down the ancient town of Kyoto.

"Fall has seen its share of broken hearts."

With the return of the sad smile and a small shrug, Stephen then asked the cruelest yet kindest question of all. "What is one more?"

_____________

Loki watched the last of the autumn leaves fall one by one onto the cold, hard ground. He had never told anyone but his eyesight had become better with age, especially in the dark. Be it his Jotunn blood or his ever-growing proficiency in the practice of magic, he found it both a blessing and a curse.

Winter was coming.

And something was burning.

The smoke detector blared but the alarm sounded distant, unimportant. A white noise of modern living.

There was a time when Loki would have let the world around him burn, just for one moment of peace...until he learned that solace was not a place. Tony taught him that.

The patio door slid open behind him and before his husband could speak,

"Do you need a hand, darling?" Loki said without turning his head.

"I think I burnt the turkey!" Tony said, sounding awfully stressed over an overdone poultry no one was going to eat anyway. "I need some time-turning magic! Stephen, you need to timey-wimey the turkey back to edib - "

He frowned. "Where did Strange go?"

"He had to leave."

"What? Why?"

"He didn't say."

"It's not Thanksgiving without turkey."

"I'm sure we'll manage," Loki said mildly.

He waved a hand and the smell of smoke disappeared, the smoke detector alarm dwindling into the first chimes of the cicadas' night song.

"Think it was some kind of Sorcerer Supreme business? He left without saying goodbye."

"Must be."

Tony sank slowly into the chair Stephen had so hastily vacated. "Well, I guess protecting our reality comes first.”

“Yeah,” Loki said softly. “I guess.”

"Are you alright?" Tony asked carefully.

“You didn’t tell me he was coming.”

“I didn’t know he was. He has never RVSP-ed before, no matter how many times we invited him over.”

“Why now? Why this year?”

“Maybe he just misses you.”

“Anthony…”

"How long has it been? Seven, eight years since you last saw each other?"

Loki had meant to leave Tony's rhetorical question unanswered but nostalgia had other ideas. "Ten."

Tony whistled. A decade, huh. "That must be why."

“Tony, don’t.”

“Look, Lokes,” Tony said haltingly as he ran a rakish hand through his hair. "Everybody has a history. You know mine. I'm lucky if I could learn half of yours before I die but what I do know of it, I'm cool with it. You're with me now and that's all that matters."

Loki said nothing.

"Am I wrong?" Tony pleaded when the silence went on for far too long.

Loki rolled his eyes. "There's a little girl upstairs who has your face and your name, what do you think?"

"Seeing as she is our daughter, she's mine, sure." Tony's eyes were asking a different question altogether, Are you?

Loki sighed, feeling sick to his stomach. The one sip of the sickly sweet drink he took sat heavy and sour, heralding the onset of nausea that would take hours to calm.

His hand slipped inside his pocket and grasped the palm-sized object, not knowing what to expect -

The tiniest gust of wind blew against his cheek, and Loki let out a startled cry. He had not felt Stephen's magic in a long, long time.

"Loki?" he heard Tony call out, the abject concern in his husband's voice.

He picked up the pouch that had fallen out of his pocket and fisted it tightly, noticing how his nausea had completely vanished.

"It's an Omamori charm," he said faintly. "The Japanese would gift these to expectant mothers as a good luck charm for safety in pregnancy and childbirth."

"Why would he - " Tony's eyes bulged as he gaped, "You're pregnant?"

"Yes," Loki said, painfully aware of how feathery and weak his voice sounded.

"And you told him?" Tony asked, his voice rising in pitch. "Before me?"

Loki ignored the jealousy in Tony's voice and the hurt in his husband's eyes. Not only was it unfounded, Loki was barely holding it together himself.

He shook his head more forcefully than he intended and a few tears landed on the weather-beaten deck, darkening it in places.

"Stephen just knew." Loki wiped his face surreptitiously. "He knows these things."

"I bet he does," Tony muttered darkly.

Loki turned to look at his husband furiously. "What the fuck does that mean?"

"Baby, I didn't mean it like that." Tony hurriedly tried to gather Loki in his arms but his unyielding husband refused to budge so Tony slid onto the floor and surrendered himself to the mercy of Loki's lap. "I say the stupidest shit sometimes, stuff I don't even mean."

But Loki was nothing if not persistent. "Then what did you mean?"

Tony was quiet for a time. "Bambi, I'm the coolest guy I know. I look good for my age. Did I tell you my skin age dropped from fifty to thirty after I went on that cleansing diet Bruce recommended on his podcast?"

If Loki waited long enough, Tony almost always got to the point. Eventually.

"Hey, Fury told me that the last Sorcerer Supreme lived for hundreds of years. How crazy is that?"

“Where are you going with this?”

“Nowhere,” Tony said all too quickly.

"You are talking to the God of Lies, Tony, or did you forget?" Loki's eyes glinted dangerously. "Try again."

“Someday...one day when I’m no longer around and if you decide that - ” Tony hesitated. His gaze shifted to the floor. “I just want you to know that I’m okay with it. I’m okay with the idea of...you. And him.”

“You would say that to me when I have given up everything to be with you. To take you as my husband." Loki's eyes welled. "To bear our children.”

His breath hitched, his chest felt tight. "After all these years, you still - "

"No, Loki. Please, don't."

Tony could never stand to see him cry, but Loki could not help the tears streaming down his face of their own volition.

"Please don't cry…"

Rough, calloused hands pawed at the hollow of his cheeks.

"I just wish I could make you happy."

But Loki was not having it. "The man can see into the future, Stark. Do you honestly believe he would have let you have me if you couldn't?"

Tony was stunned into silence.

"What ever gave you the impression that I was not happy with you?" Loki asked bitterly, his entire frame trembling under the weight of anger and some other emotion he dared not name. "You are not some charity case I picked up because you had the shorter life to live."

The silence stretched into long minutes of heartache and morose reflection.

“Are you mad at me?” Tony asked quietly.

"No." Loki shook his head. “I am thankful for you. You gave me a chance. No one else did.”

“Hey, hey. It wasn’t all me. It was mostly you. It was all you.”

Tony grabbed Loki's hand and pressed an exceptionally fierce kiss on the bone-cold knuckles. “You gave us a chance. I just wanted someone I couldn’t have.”

“Someone you thought you couldn’t have," Loki corrected.

Tony gazed into the icy depth of Loki's eyes, looking for an affirmation only Loki could give.

“Stephen may have come first but you are not second, Tony."

Loki touched his fingertips to the sides of his husband's dear, sweet face. "You were never second.”

"I love you, Games."

"And I, you," Loki reassured him, stilling the quiver of Tony's lips with a brush of a thumb. "Even if you don't always believe me."

"I do." In a throwback to his overexcitement on their wedding day, Tony showered Loki's face all over with kisses, each more desperate than the one before. "I do, I do, I do!"

"I never doubted you, Loki. I was just being an idiot. An insecure, self-centered idiot." Tony reached out a hand to touch Loki's stomach. "Are you okay?"

"I am more than okay." Loki laced his fingers through Tony's. "Are you?"

"Are you kidding? Do you see this?" Tony gestured at the giant grin he was wearing. It was so huge he felt as if his cheeks would snap. "This is my happy face. I am super happy." Then his face contorted. "When did we -?"

"Make her?" Loki bit down on his lip. "By my calculation, probably last month on our trip to Italy."

Tony's already big eyes widened. Her? He mouthed.

Loki thought of the pouch charm with its exquisite pink brocade and gold silk lining.

The Sorcerer Supreme was never wrong.

"Yes, we are having another girl," Loki said giddily. Tears of happiness did not sting as much so this time he did not bother blinking them away.

Tony's eyes danced. "Can I tweet this yet?"

"No."

"But my followers come up with the most amazing baby names!"

"No!"

Tony pouted. "Fine. But we're giving her an Italian name."

"Tony, we don't really have to name every kid we have after the place where they were conceived, you know."

"Espérance grew into hers," Tony argued. After a few seconds of heavy thinking, "I quite like Isabella."

Loki wrinkled his nose beatifically. "Too common."

"Ludovica? You thought the sculpture was beautiful."

"I am not naming our daughter after a tomb effigy!" Loki said indignantly. "Although I did meet Bernini once. Give him a slab of marble and he could breathe it to life."

The reminiscent smile on Loki's face took on a life of its own. "You would have liked him. He was quite flashy, like you."

"God you're sexy when you name-drop famous dead people," Tony sighed.

Loki began to laugh; it started off slow, before escalating into a full, heartfelt laughter that had him grabbing Tony's face in both hands.

Stephen chose to serve the world. Maybe in another life, he would choose Loki.

But for now, and forever…

There was no other man for him.

He bent down to kiss Tony on the lips, gently, deeply and fully.

"Anthony Stark, you have my heart." For Loki too remembered his wedding vows. "Whole, healed and eternal."

And eternal indeed was their love, the former Iron Man and his Ice Prince, and healed were their hearts, conjoined as one, for as long as they both shall live.

#frostiron #strangefrost

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blackandwhitemotley · 3 years

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Blood of Dragons Question Time

1. What were your favourite moments?

Relpda’s first flight

Thymara and Sintara bonding (kind of) at the sandpit

Chassim and Selden meeting

Sedric finding the silver well

Hest coming to Kelsingra and recognising Alise and Sedric

Thymara and Rapskal going down the well and finding Amarinda

Sedric confronting Hest in the map tower

Chassim and Selden having tea while the dragons are destroying Chalced

2. Favourite quotes?

She could change. She wasn’t chained to her past. She could become someone who wasn’t merely a product of what others had done to her. It wasn’t too late.

“It is hard for loneliness to gaze on happiness.”

“With you, Relpda. Fly, my beauty. Nothing else. Only flying.”

From Ronica Vestrit of the Vestrit Traders, Bingtown To Whatever Incompetent Bird Handler is accepting messages in Cassarick

That brought a tiny nudge from Tarman. I am the best. Eldest, wisest, best. Of course you are. I’ve always known that.

“But Sedric, what have you done? All will know that you...” “That I am what I am,” he said calmly. “I do not apologize for that. Ever.”

Hest shook his head in disgust and turned away. There were two doors out of the gathering hall, and they’d put a guard on each of them. Earlier today, one had been a skinny girl with pink scaling and blond hair. He’d tried to charm her into letting him take a stroll around the square, just to stretch his legs. She looked at him and replied not a word. When he’d tried to just walk past her, she hadn’t blocked him. She’d only said, “My dragon is the large gold one sleeping in the sun on the steps.” Hest hadn’t challenged her after that.

He spun back to Hest when the Bingtowner snickered. Davvie’s fists were clenched as he gritted out, “I don’t play your sort of games, old man. I don’t need to pretend I’m being forced. I’ve chosen to be who I am.”

“No, Hest. No to all of it.”

“I think I will name you ‘Meat.’ ”

“Dawn,” Thymara scoffed. “I think the dragons meant, ‘After we wake up and when we feel like it.’ ”

“you torn-up old umbrella!”

3. Did the reread change your opinion of the book? In whay way?

Blood of Dragons is so good 🥰 But as always, I think Hobb maybe ran out of time because the ending feels rushed, and I would have welcomed another 100-200 pages to explore the One Day War and Chassim’s rise to power.

Overall and despite its flaws, I think I still love The Rain Wilds Chronicles a bit more than The Liveship Traders!

#rote #Realm of the Elderlings #robin hobb #rain wild chronicles #blood of dragons #rote reread #question time #the reread also made me realise how filled with inconsistencies rwc is xD #the funniest one being something about Jerd that a friend found out #404 editor not found

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kkulmoon · 4 years

Text

SUNSET HEARTBEAT | KTH

pairing: Taehyung x Reader (f)

genre: fantasy au, hybrid au, sci-fi (?), fluff, angst

word count: 5.1k

rating: pg

a/n: ngl i feel like the beginning portion is a bit rusty, by rusty I mean it may feel a bit slow but pls give it a chance 🥺, I struggled to write that 😭. I am also tagging two very lovely people who were excited about this, hopefully you like it uwu @blossomkoo @inkedxclouds. This fic is part of Bangtan Scenery’s collab ‘April Showers Bring May Flowers’, make sure to check out everyone else’s entries!

warnings: implied sex, other than that none, except for heartbreak and slight purple patches here and there cause I was in the mood hehe

beta read by: lovely angie @scvkjin and amazing emi @bangtiddies 💕

synopsis: The time had come for the seventh sun to rise. For the seventh and last color in line to have its cycle. As one indigo supernova signified the coming of a purple nebula, you and Taehyung spent the remaining of your last day together creating something of your own. If it comes into fruition can only be known years in the future. A decade after you found someone unlike anyone. Truly one of a kind. Someone with a destiny they couldn’t outrun. It has been 10 years since the birth of a purple sun.

☁︎ masterlist ☁︎

It was in your final year of university, twelve years ago, that you met Taehyung. That same year you decided it was time to give up on the idea of becoming an astronomer. Quite frankly, you were just too dumb. However, it did not mean that you couldn't enjoy it all while living a life where pretending that you truly understood everything was your best bet, your only bet. They all say that interest and dedication trumps natural talent, right? For that same reason you decided to still attend as many astronomy lectures as possible even though you were studying to become an English teacher. You were always quiet and attentive so either the professors didn't notice you or let you be. Either way, what mattered was that you got to be there.

The first time the two of you interacted was a random weekday in April, near finals’ season. You were sitting at the back of the room as usual. The professor had handed out some papers to be passed back. A gold tinted hand with slender fingers, on which well groomed and shiny fingernails were present, reached out to you. You could all but wave away at the paper, trying your best to dismiss it. A pouty and confused expression was what you got as he continued to jab the paper onto your palm. You kept trying to mouth 'it's okay' but he was persistent. Not much of a purple characteristic but surely a sun one, now that you think about it. Finally you settled for a verbal response.

“I don't actually take this class, so really, i'm fine.”

He retreated his hand for a second, “Huh, don't we all wish that was true,” he said as he placed the paper on the small desk in front of you instead. “You've got this! We're almost done, hold in there.” You got a thumbs up before he turned back to focus on the class.

And every week from there on, whenever he got a short moment in class while the professor was writing on the board Taehyung would pester you with motivational notes filled with sayings. One particular somber April morning where you looked more tired than usual he even went as far as offering to help you with the class and your homework. You did your best to decline and yet that same night you got an email in your inbox that told you he obviously hadn't understood.

| Kim Taehyung Chapter 15: Helpful Resources, (hang on there, you got this!) |

While you didn't take the class and had no official obligations to learn anything, you were still interested in astronomy so you decided to have a look. The links did clear up some questions you had during the lecture. However, you didn't want him to be wasting time helping a lost cause. As much as you loved reading about astronomy and learning about it, you were slow and having him help you was more than unnecessary. The definition of futile work. You decided to send him a screenshot of the official classes you were attending from the university's student portal. You made sure to censor your grades. He truly didn't need to think that you were any dumber, all he needed was proof that you weren't taking the class.

But once again, Taehyung's sun qualities shone through. Where it would have been expected for the person to drop the subject and for the two of you to go back to your habitual behaviour, he thought otherwise. He responded, but this time instead of answers he had questions, none of which you felt like answering so you left him on read. Well, the email version of read. You opened the email, read it, thought about answering it but ultimately left the email thread to die on the read pile.

A week went by. No Taehyung and you felt relieved. At least that's how you think you felt, the sleep deprivation might have been playing tricks on you. As yet another day came, where the indigo sun let its rays shine, Taehyung thought it better for him to act as the sun. You hadn't seen him in class, but it just turned out he changed his usual spot. He tried to catch you before you left the room but your daydreaming self was quick on her feet. He had a quick talk with the professor before he hurried to you.

“Hey!” The sound of sandals echoed against the cement floor. “Hey! You there!"

You kept on walking, as far as you knew your name wasn’t you there'. Someone grumbled behind you only to exclaim after a short while.

“Y/N! Y/N! Hold up, I need to talk to you.” So in that case you were 'you there' and someone was Taehyung.

You stopped walking and turned around. You couldn’t help but cock your head at him. You had only seen Taehyung from the torso up while in class. His attire surprised you for some reason. Maybe because he was a STEM student and you had expected him to look more uptight. He looked like one of the people from the pot dorm down your hallway. Everything he wore was oversized except for the big knitted headband he had on now that he was outside. He looked devoid of colour with his muted clothes, but his cross body bag stood out with its patterned rainbow material.

"Yeah, what is it?" The quicker you could get it over with the better. However, Taehyung didn’t seem to agree with you on that aspect. He took his sweet time to fix the misplaced headband as you were left to witness the action. As much as you would have liked to categorise the scene as boring, it would have been a lie. His grey hair strands somehow managed to sparkle in the sun. They didn’t shine the normal way hair shines when light reflects on it. His hair literally sparkled as if it had recognised something familiar within the sun rays. But at the time you just thought you were being delusional or being tricked by the elements of his beauty.

"You didn't answer my email," he asked with curious eyes and an innocent tone. Right, that happened.

"Oh, that... uhm... I just haven't gotten the time to go through my email, things have been a bit hectic," you shot him a sympathetic smile.

Taehyung seemed like a pretty understanding person but he sure wasn’t dumb. You saw the way his tongue shifted to lick his lips as his teeth found their way onto his bottom lip. He trailed his hands on the strap of his bags as a pensive lip bite made adorned his features. Taehyung could have either been nervous or so irked by the bullshit you just spat at him that his body was reacting. Either way you felt bad for your white lie, but maybe not bad enough.

"It has been two weeks though," Taehyung stretches his back to stand straighter, "Also I take a chem class with Hoseok and you're always chatting in the gmail chat so..."

What do you say to that? You lied and the worst part of it all was that you were caught right in the same moment. Your mouth opened and closed continuously as a hot flush made itself present on your ears and neck. You made note of the fact that Taehyung seems sweet but he actually packed a punch and was definitely ready to confront you on your bullshit. Classic STEM student approach, just face things head on. Thinking back at it, that was yet another instance in which his sun characteristics took the wheel. The sun's rays don't budge for anything or anyone and they certainly don't cave in to make others feel comfortable.

"Uhmm... right. But I am here now, so ask away!" Maybe your fake enthusiasm could make up for your little lie. Taehyung gave you a wondering look as he calculated the pros and cons of continuing this conversation, You hoped the cons would win.

“Uhmm, alright, fair enough,” He shrugged and the pros must have won because he kept talking. “Why do you go to astronomy lessons if you don’t take the class?”

Why did he want to get into your personal business? You could have very well told him that it was none of his business, turned around and left. But that seemed a tad bit too rude for you and for some weird reason you didn't want him to think of you as any more rude that you had been.

Would you paint yourself as an overly ambitious student that just had a general love of learning or would you tell him the truth? If you were to lie again you were sure he wouldn't manage to uncover this lie.

"I just like astronomy and find the class interesting, on top of that I've got time so like why not?" You felt good about your response, so good you were happy that you had made the choice not to lie to him, again.

"Oh okay, then how come you didn't apply for the program?" Wow, this dude was really trying to uncover all of your flaws during the first real conversation you've had. He should have become a detective instead, his focused and analysing eyes made it very hard for you to lie and not feel any residual guilt. He would, without a doubt, catch you if you were to slip up again.

"Uhm... I just felt like education was the right place for me you know." You shook your head with squinted eyes in hopes that he would just get you. Which he obviously didn’t if you had to go off of the way his jaw jutted out to the side.

"Well, to put it simply, I am not the brightest of students and while actually taking the class would have been a nightmare, just being there and listening and learning at my own slow pace just makes me feel better about my shortcomings."

Taehyung's lips parted slightly. Okay, maybe you didn't have to give such a confession but he had been pushing and you wanted it to just end.

"Ohh, I see." Not the response you expected but how else do you respond to someone who said that they were too dumb to follow their dream. "But still my offer stands, if you need help trying to understand anything, feel free to tap my shoulder in class."

"But you changed seats to sit in the front."

"Nah not really, I was just bitter that you hadn't answered and didn't want to hurt you. From now on you'll see me at my usual spot in front of you."

The squeamish movement that accompanied the words ‘hurt you’ gave rise to a wondering look on your face. Hurt you? Why would he hurt you? Taehyung looked pretty harmless so you decided to not take his weird comment at face value. He most likely meant hurting you in a verbal sense.

The rest of the semester progressed in that same weird manner that characterised your relationship with Taehyung. A constant push and pull that kept being encouraged by your closest friends– Hoseok being the top player in the game. Inevitably, the more time you spent with him the more you warmed up to him. A month down the road the two of you decided to put a label on it. Or it was more so you who needed a verbal confirmation that you had somehow managed to catch someone's interest.

It took you awhile to reset the way you thought. Your wandering mind wasn’t only filled with personal affairs anymore, another individual had found their place in your day to day thoughts. All of a sudden being affectionate wasn't something you had to actively be, it was simply default mode whenever Taehyung crossed your field of vision.

For that reason alone, finals season was filled with movie nights, whispered love confessions, enough takeaways from different cuisines that you felt you were now ready to become a food critic. But the most precious instances of that time was the afternoons where Taehyung did his best to teach you astronomy and you being too lazy to listen despite your interest. You can't help but ask yourself if you would have been more attentive had you known what astronomy actually meant to him.

You had now been with Taehyung for one entire year. One year filled with diametrically opposite feelings. The good, the bad and the ugly. But ultimately all of it was left at the door the moment the two of you decided to reconcile despite the drawbacks. You were happy. The kind of happy that you don't recognise until it's gone. That can only be acknowledged in the midst of incoming fury. You had never in your life wished for the ability to predict the future. To see what happens after sunrise before it is manifested.

One particular day eleven years ago, you wished that astronomy was fake, that the sun wasn't real and that it never needed to rise or set, to be born or die. You wished the sun didn't exist, knowing very well that that would mean the most important person in your life wouldn't exist. But you could have dealt with that.

Longing for something you know you could have hurts far more than craving for the unknown. In the latter situation there's at least hope, that if you search hard and long enough you could find that thing you so deeply want. In the former, you know where that thing is, it's in fact right under your nose, or more accurately right over your head, where you can feel it at least a little bit every single day. Except this time you can't have it, no matter how hard you wish for it or how long you choose to wait. The whole scenario was like a twisted marshmallow test. Made to incite cravings with no intention of ever quenching them.

This all started a year following the start of your relationship with Taehyung. At that time you took notice to how hot he would get at the most unexpected of times. A behaviour that was usually reserved for when he was irritated or angry. It wasn’t only him that was hot but he radiated the kind of heat reserved for an extremely sunny summer’s day.

You overlooked those instances and decided not to pay them too much mind. It could just be you having the extreme hots from him. However on a particular night, you just couldn’t bring yourself to stay in bed with Taehyung. The sheets were drenched and the windows had fogged up. You had to leave and find refuge in your living room sleeping right by a fan.

The coming morning you woke up to breakfast on the table and right beside it there was a thick pocket sized book. The Book Of Suns. That was the white title that was engraved onto the black cover. Taehyung was nowhere to be found but his belongings were still in your room so you assumed he had gone for his morning walk.

You had to make a choice between the two. Would you read the book first or you would eat breakfast first? You knew that whatever you were about to find out would most likely curb your appetite. Your hand glided against the rough cover of the book.

Wouldn't it be better to read it now, just in case something made you extremely sad? That way you could cry before he got back home. Whatever it was that you were about to find out was very important to him, important enough that he wanted you to form your own opinion of it in peace. He wanted in no way for his presence to taint your reaction towards the truth that he had been hiding. Or as he thought protecting you from.

You sat down by the table, knees to your chest as you brought the book onto your hands. 'The Book Of Suns' was, as you realised after reading it, just that, a book about suns, in particular Taehyung’s sun lineage. It was a story about your world’s suns, the rainbow sun family. A fact unknown to you before that very moment. You were surprised by your behaviour, you weren’t exactly known for having calm reactions. It must have been Taehyung’s scent on the sweater you wore. It tickled your nose and calmed your senses. The book served as a track record for the next person in line to become the sun. It had seven chapters. Beside each chapter title in the contents page there were small vertical lines. The first six suns had five lines while the last had four. Taehyung must be purple sun. You read silently or more so you attempted to read silently, the deep breaths you were taking in effort to digest everything couldn't be contained.

After a continuous hour of reading you got to what was perhaps the most interesting chapter. Where do the dead suns go? And most importantly what do the suns that have yet to be born stay? You were cautious about continuing your reading. What if you found out that Taehyung was in fact just the ghost of someone that didn't actually exist? Or worse what if Taehyung would cease to exist?

Fear curbed your initiative to let your eyes continue their dance on the page. But fear also did its job in fixating your attention on the slightly faded black letters present on the off-white pages. Fear of the unknown is always worse than that of the known.

Deep in the forest, there was the garden of suns. Every time a sun died and resurrected as a human, their statue appeared in the garden, where their sun soul was kept, only to vanish on the day of their sun birth. In the middle of the pages there was a picture, at the back of it you could read Taehyung’s harsh handwriting ‘The garden of suns -15/07/39’. He had been there four days ago.

The statues of the first five suns were covered with vibrant collared moss equivalent of their sun pigment. The sixth and seventh sun’s statues were only slightly visible in the photograph. They seemed to be in an intermediary phase. Not quite gone, yet not quite there. It was hard to figure out whether they were emerging or vanishing. That’s until you remembered the previous week’s news report. A supernova was on its way and scientists believed it would most likely occur near the end of next year.

The indigo sun is near its death, and a purple sun is nearing its ascent.

Taehyung’s statue was the one vanishing. His sun soul was ready to find its owner and ascend to its rightful place amongst the other stars. Just as you were about to continue reading, ready to delve into how this whole sun birth situation went about, the sound of metal clashing against metal resounded in the dead silence. Clinging keys and heavy steps entered the apartment.

No 'hello' or 'glad to see you're finally awake'. But could you blame him? It would have been weird to act as if it was like any other of your usual mornings. You wished you had mustered up the strength to get off the chair and go greet him at the entrance. In your mind you did that but in reality you stayed rooted right where you were, back squeezed into the corner between the table and chair.

Taehyung walked in to lean against the door frame that lead into the kitchen. He looked exhausted. Dark under eye bags decorated weary eyes. You thought you could hear a tentative squeak come out of his mouth. Maybe you should've said something, because he looked like he was hurting and trying to find the appropriate words to start a conversation he knew would only end with heartache and tears. You thought that talking about the small steps he made outside was a good way to segue into talking about the biggest step he would take in his life. One that he could unfortunately not walk back on.

"How was your walk?" You managed to ask before Taehyung walked past the kitchen and into the bedroom. He stopped midway, standing in the living room, where sun rays illuminated his surroundings. You couldn't help but think that it was very fitting for him to become a sun. The rays may have been bright and hot but he was the only one able to make you feel as hot as the sun and make your smile shine brighter than the biggest star. He was already a sun. Your sun. Why did he need to leave and become everyone's sun as well?

"Pretty good, helped me wake up," he said and sat down on the bean bag present beside him. You put the book down on the dining table just to look back at him from your seat. You were just there, in the moment, sitting down and doing your best to have an internal conversation. Both of you knew that words would hurt too much. And they surely couldn't bear the complete weight of what your current predicament meant neither could they have illustrated the joint pain that was shared between two beating hearts.

Your conversation might have been dead but the emotion was very much alive. You stood up from your seat, Taehyung's knitted sweater fell back down to caress your thighs. The walk to the beanbag felt like an eternity, not because it was but because you made it so. You had felt his sour and vigilant mood and you knew that being playful at that moment was your best bet. You tiptoed back and forth all the way to the beanbag as the sweater shifted here and there to reveal skin that was highlighted blue by the sun.

He was upset but he couldn't manage to keep his mouth set. His lips would stretch and unstretch as small playful wiggles played at the tip of his mouth. Finally you had found your way to the bean bag. You stood tall as your body cast a shadow over his. You placed a foot on the bean bag as the material sunk under your weight and you found your place on his lap.

Right there, that's the kind of pat in the back that Taehyung gave you as his arms enveloped your slouching form. You snuggled your head deep into the crook of his neck and inhaled all the way in. If he was really gonna be leaving you, you needed to make sure you could imprint the scent and feel of his flesh right onto yours.

You sat there, quiet, with synchronised breaths yet fighting thoughts. How in the heck were you supposed to manage this? Him just being gone? Sure, you had a year left before it was officially time, but a year is far from a lifetime, what he had promised you.

"You are sure you don't want to talk about it?" Long hand strokes continue to comfort your back. You move your buried head side to side, groaning in response. Alright is all he said. Things were far from alright.

While on that morning you decided not to talk further on the topic, the coming months were filled with explorative trips to the Garden of Suns, where you would spend hours listening to Taehyung tell you about the stories of him and his sun brothers. He talked about being particularly close to the blue sun.

"It's just because he literally has no filter," he said gazing longingly at the statue covered with flashy blue moss.

"Is that like, dangerous?"

"Well yeah for you, but I am a sun remember." He turned around on the grass to face your way.

"And that's probably why I orbit around you." The huge grin that found its ways to your face was uncontrollable and contagious as Taehyung couldn’t help but snicker at your corny joke.

Just like that, your months together flew by until it was finally d-day. You hoped that waking up wouldn't be a necessity but Taehyung refused to let you sleep through it. He refused to let you think that it was all a dream. Getting yourself off the bed and into the shower felt like an endless task. One that he was patient enough to help you with. In hindsight you feel bad about having put him through that on such a significant day. He was, most likely, having a harder time dealing with his destiny than you were. That day was one to remember, the most vivid of them all, the most cherished of them all yet the most sad of them all.

All of that happened in the past and you were currently in an unsure present. The indigo sun had faced its fate, to be extinguished in an equally coloured supernova that would give rise to the last one in line, a purple sun. One day they would all be back to the complete cycle. A day where you wouldn't be present.

It has been ten years since Taehyung became a sun. You could talk to him, well, not really but you could see him and most importantly feel him. It had been a decade since you asked him to leave you something to remember him by, a part of him, a living one. On the night of Taehyung’s sun birth he decided to take you up on the offer. Cuddled up, in each other’s arms that’s how the day progressed. While usually persistent yet gentle, that night Taehyung felt it was appropriate and maybe in fact vital for him let his sun like ferocity be expressed. How else could you have understood the intensity of his feelings, a muddy mix of grief and love. The remains of that one last heated night were left for you to admire and cherish.

You thought you would manage to stay up the entire night to witness the purple sun birth but Taehyung’s warmth, forehead kisses and soft singing lulled you to sleep before you could realise it.

Nothing was felt. No heat, no cold. Nothing was seen. No light, no spark. Taehyung was gone into the void in the same effortless way he entered your life. You’ve now been waiting over a decade to know if the fruits of that night would come into fruition. Conception can only happen when eclipses take place. Eclipses happen every 126 months. It has been 10 years. Half a year is left.

That half year could not have passed at a slower pace. It was a Thursday, yet another tiring day at school. You loved kids but you were drained of energy. You couldn't wait for time to pass by so that you could leave. It was Thursday, which meant you could watch the sunset to its complete end without being bothered. It was also Thursday, the day after you got your first ultrasound. Taehyung may have not been there but that didn't mean you couldn't share the remaining of your waking hours with him, whenever you thought it was possible. You looked out of the window from your classroom to see purple hues in the sky as the sun said goodbye to leave place to another night.

The clouds thought otherwise, for some reason they always felt the need to be there to cloud his presence. What right did they have to cover up his tint? If it weren’t for them you would have been able to bask in his purple light, let it colour you bare as your feelings went from blank to purple butterflies that made you lose sight as tears formed in your eyes.

So you did what any sensible person still in love would have done. As soon as the clock struck 4 pm you ran to catch the train that would take you from skyscraper views to wide flower fields. It took the train two hours. You did your best to enjoy the way he set along the ride. Once you arrived you were left with two entire hours to enjoy the last of him and say goodbye to Taehyung and hello to the darkness.

During that time you reached into Taehyung's patterned cross body bag. You truly hated it but it was his so you kept it. You pulled out the ultrasound picture and raised it to the little part of sun that was still left. You didn't actually think that he would, through some weird magical way, actually be able to see it. It was more so something to calm your conscience. But most importantly, it presented you with the opportunity to capture an unusual family picture. It was you, the ultrasound, your baby bump and the purple sunset all in one picture. One that had found its rightful place on your bedside table.

Years unmasked themselves to reveal the growth of your child. One that grew to inherit the intensity of her father. Every now and then you made sure to let her know about him. As young as she was she couldn't truly understand it all, but as a child your love story was something that was within imaginable grounds. So you took advantage of that and taught her all you could about him. Maybe if you started early she could manage to develop past your less refined genes with regards to learning.

You took your time to tell her all that she wished to know and all that you wished to share. Sugarcoating to the maximum, cause that’s what Taehyung would do, but still making sure to keep a coherent timeline. One specific day you are unable to answer her question.

"Wh–why did dad break the promish?"

You had to fight long and hard with your tear ducts. Never had you cried in front her and you didn't intend to do it anytime soon.

In fact in one way or the other, Taehyung hadn't lied about keeping his promise. He had omitted some important specifics but he hadn't completely been untruthful. He said a lifetime and he would give you a lifetime. It just happened to be one where he wasn't always there, present by your side.

However he would always get up to see you rise, and always say goodbye as he sets down to give place for lonely nights. And on all of those goodbyes unlike the one where he left you for the first and last time, you could swear that in bed with your child pressed to your chest, you could feel and hear his sunset heartbeat as clear and strong as the rays of a certain purple sun, your only one. Sun rays filled with his most cherished truth:

‘I will turn purple when i miss you and to say i love you’.

Posted: May 28, 2020

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hotchley · 4 years

Text

“i think, deep down, we’re all capable of unspeakable things”

morehotchcontent day six: rocky relationship (kinda forgotten anniversary/a big fight)

tagged: @ablogofthecriminalmindsvariety

she knew just what marriage meant to aaron. he’d grown up in south virginia, where tradition was everything. where marriage was everything one could ever hope for. she had grown up in brighton, where people really did not give a flying fuck about any of that. it had never meant much to her, but to aaron it meant everything.

his proposal was so much more than a proposal. it was the final sign that he’d moved on from haley. that he truly loved her. and a part of him would always love haley, there was no point in saying he wouldn’t, but this- this was him saying thank you, i love you, i won’t leave, i trust you, i want to see you in the morning and make you my own all at once.

“i can’t marry you,” she whispered.

keep your tissues handy. that’s all i’m saying.

warnings: implied/referenced child abuse, references to george foyet, mentions of minor character death, cheating

read on ao3!

Everyone viewed Aaron Hotchner as cold and emotionless. Someone who was constantly stoic and unattached, who saw the horrors that came with the BAU and didn’t even flinch. But what most of them didn’t realise was that the man they saw at work and in the field wasn’t Aaron. That man was Hotch. He knew how to compartmentalise, how to pretend that he wasn’t falling apart, how to keep the tremble out of his voice when all he wanted to do was fall apart.

Aaron was a different man. Aaron would play pretend with his son for hours on end, just to keep him happy and make him smile. He woke up in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and breathing heavily as his body shook and tears streamed down his face as the monsters of his day haunted his night. He would dance with Penelope because he could never say to her.

He was a helpless romantic.

Eleanor- Ellie to her friends, and SSA Birch to local police departments- knew this first-hand.

She had first met Aaron Hotchner during the liaison programme with Kate Joyner. Kate had been unimpressed by everyone there, because the last time she’d done it, they’d all acted like they knew so much better than her. Eleanor had met Aaron first, and immediately wondered where everyone like him had been when Kate first did it.

Because Aaron was lovely. He held doors open, he listened, he smiled at everyone, and he phoned his girlfriend- not his wife, even though they’d been dating since high school and he was now twenty-eight- during every single break they had, regardless of the time difference.

Then she’d fucked up and kissed him. They had both been drunk. A case had gone shit, and she needed something good. But then he called her Haley. And she’d immediately sobered up. He had looked at her with such shame that she almost cried. For some reason, she knew his passcode. The moment he ran to the bathroom to throw up the alcohol, she unlocked it. Phoned Haley. Said that her boyfriend was going to blame himself for what had happened but it wasn’t him it was her.

And Haley… had been lovely. She’d said that she knew Aaron loved her. And that Eleanor seemed like a lovely person but she understood that need for comfort. Eleanor had wondered how people were still so good. She didn’t tell Aaron about the phone call. He left the next day. The programme was finished. She thought that would be the end of it.

Then she transferred over to the BAU. She hadn’t known he was Unit Chief. David Rossi did her interview. It was incredibly awkward at first. She wasn’t used to hiding from her teammates but Aaron had panicked when he first saw her and started pretending he’d never seen her. Her only option was to play along. Haley had just left him at this point.

Kate Joyner obviously recognised her. That was a conversation she never wanted to have again. She thought she’d jeopardised both her place on the team and her dynamic. Then Kate died, Hotch lost his hearing temporarily and she was the only person that Reid would let touch him after the fiasco with Benjamin Cyrus.

She liked Spencer. He was almost like the son she never had.

It was Eleanor that had stayed behind with Aaron after Haley’s funeral and dealt with the phone calls. She told herself it was because she was trying to be a good person and repent for what she had done. Truthfully it was because she knew he was going to fall. And she didn’t want the burden of catching him to fall to the others who had already supported him through so much- Adrian Bale, Vincent Perrotta, Haley leaving.

They’d been getting to a good place. Not quite dating, but not quite friends. She knew he was watching her; there was a reason she was a profiler. He knew she still loved him, but he was grieving Haley. It wouldn’t be fair to her if he suddenly changed their whole dynamic.

But then he faked Emily’s death and it was like they were right back at square one: she would undermine everything he said because she was angry, and he was there, and it was easy to blame him. Her emotions had always been her greatest strength and her fatal flaw.

And then he’d turned up at her apartment, soaked through from the rain, eyes wide and glistening with unshed tears. She’d been too shocked to close the door on him. He’d immediately started rambling about how he couldn’t live the way he was, and how he just needed to know that she trusted him because everything was falling apart and he just needed her.

Not knowing what else to do, she’d kissed him. It had been messy, and wet, and nowhere near as romantic as either of them liked to pretend it had been. But it had been their first actually sober kiss, so it held a special place in her heart. And after that, it was like everything just fell into place.

Which led to the present moment. She knew what day it was. She knew her present to him was still safely tucked away in the bathroom behind her pads and his spare shower gel which he wouldn’t need for another twenty days. She knew he was excited, because for once, he could guarantee that he would be home.

After his surgery, he realised that he couldn’t keep doing what he was doing because sooner or later it was going to kill him. He hadn’t wanted to place the burden of keeping everyone together on Morgan though. So Emily came back. Her and Dave split the paperwork for lead profiler, and Morgan took over as unit chief. It had been difficult for him, those first few months.

But he’d pulled through, and was now living a much more stress free life as a law professor at the local college. It meant he could go to Jack’s school events and be there for him. It let Jessica have more time to herself.

It also meant he planned nice things for days like these. And Ella knew it was unfair to keep him waiting, but she just couldn’t bring herself to get up and go home, choosing instead to focus on the casefile in front of her. The bullpen was quiet: JJ had her own office and had gone home anyways, Reid had gone to see a piano concert thing- she’d tried her best to follow but had just gotten lost- and Anderson was out of town.

So instead of it being lively and loud, it was just her. And her casefile. Which she’d been looking at for the past ten minutes without any of the information going into her head.

With a groan, she slammed it shut and pushed it away.

“Shouldn’t you have gone home by now?” Dave asked, appearing at either the best or worst possible moment depending on your view, just like he always did.

“Probably. But I just- I can’t bring myself to do it,” she confessed.

Dave sighed. “You need to. Aaron will start to worry if you don’t. And we all already told him that there are no cases, so don’t even think of using the paperwork from that as an excuse.”

She sighed. “You’re insufferable.”

“And you still sound like you grew up in Buckingham Palace.” He picked up the case file. “Nothing’s happened here for six months. I’m sure one night won’t hurt. Now go.”

Eleanor packed her stuff up, giving him a small smile as she closed the door behind her. It immediately faded as soon as she’d turned away from him and her stomach started to twist into knots. She didn’t know if the team knew and weren’t saying anything, or if they were actually following the no profiling rule. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know either.

When she unlocked the front door, there was a distinct lack of noise. It made her feel even worse. Hotch had obviously organised for Jack to go and stay with his grandparents because she remembered that Jessica had a date, which would’ve been awkward enough for him, and here she was, two hours late, not because she’d forgotten, but because she hadn’t wanted to go.

“Hi El,” Aaron said as she entered the living room. He was sat on the couch, reading glasses sliding down his nose as he graded papers. “Just let me write this final comment and then I’m yours.”

“Hi,” she replied, feeling uneasy.

Aaron looked up. “You’re supposed to say: I can’t wait that long and then come over and give me a kiss.”

She rolled her eyes but obeyed nonetheless, legs feeling wobbly as she sat on him, smiling when he let out a soft sound of surprise. She tilted his face so she could kiss him and for the moment where their lips met, everything was fine. Then he pulled away, and she just wanted to get away. But his hand was stroking her hip in a comforting gesture and she wasn’t ready to give that up, so instead she ran her hand through his hair.

“What’s this one about?” she asked.

“They’re supposed to be critiquing and suggesting reforms for the law surrounding murder. I gave them a tonne of advice and access to all the relevant articles but some of them still didn’t even try and word it in a way that sounds like their own essay style,” he said, sighing.

Eleanor smiled slightly and set the paper down on the table. “I’m sorry for being late. But I’m here now. So why don’t you show me how all out you went this year?”

Aaron looked into her eyes and she was once again taken aback by how soft and gentle they were. Sometimes it was difficult to remember that he had once beaten a man to death. She tried to remove that thought from her head. It just was not the time.

“You never have to apologise for being late. I used to do your job, remember?”

She nodded. “How could I forget?”

“Do you want to change whilst I reheat dinner?” he asked.

“Sure.”

Their conversations hadn’t sounded that forced since she had first joined the BAU and had been adding sir onto almost all of her statements in an attempt to rile him up.

As she went upstairs to change into something more casual, she also took the time to wipe off her make-up and splash some water on her face. She only intended to take five minutes. But then she started staring at her reflection, trying to see whether or not her actions were as obvious as she thought they were. But then she became aware of the clock ticking- Aaron hated digital clocks because of the flashing numbers- and realised how long she’d been stood there for.

“I was beginning to worry,” Aaron said. A normal comment. But an invitation to tell him what was wrong.

She shrugged. “It’s our anniversary. And although I technically didn’t forget, I was late and I wanted to make that up to you, which meant going through the wardrobe and finding this dress.”

“The fact that you still say wardrobe will never fail to make me laugh,” Aaron said.

He’d made chicken and mushroom pie. Her favourite. She wanted to be sick. It was just a few hours. She could get through a few hours. Aaron was a half-decent person. He listened when people said no. Then she could go to sleep, and everything would go back to normal. Nobody would know but it wouldn’t hang over her head the same way it was when he was sat opposite her, staring with such adoration.

They ate in relative silence. She didn’t want to explain why she was late. She wanted to let him believe that it was purely because time had gotten away from her and that the meeting she’d had with Cruz about the last case had run over. She didn’t want to explain that she’d deliberately walked slowly so she would miss the train. She couldn’t.

“Your present is something old this year. I hope that’s okay,” Aaron said when they had both finished eating. There was a glint in his eye. One he only got when he was about to do something very romantic.

Eleanor frowned. Something old. Where had she heard that?

He got down on one knee.

She gasped.

“My Ella. You continue to love me day after day and for what reason, I don’t know. We didn’t pass on the best terms. But then you came back into my life when I didn’t even realise I needed you, in this massive explosion of passion and love and hope. You were there for me when I didn’t think I’d be able to survive. And you never once doubted me. I know that I’m far from perfect, and there are times where I get angry instead of being understand. And I know that I’ve upset you, but you helped me realise that as a couple, we don’t have to be perfect. We just have to try. I love you. I love you so much that I can’t even begin to put it into words. So I’ll put it into a question. Eleanor Birch, will you marry me?”

She knew just what marriage meant to Aaron. He’d grown up in South Virginia, where tradition was everything. Where marriage was everything one could ever hope for. She had grown up in Brighton, where people really did not give a flying fuck about any of that. It had never meant much to her, but to Aaron it meant everything.

His proposal was so much more than a proposal. It was the final sign that he’d moved on from Haley. That he truly loved her. And a part of him would always love Haley, there was no point in saying he wouldn’t, but this- this was him saying thank you, I love you, I won’t leave, I trust you, I want to see you in the morning and make you my own all at once.

“I can’t marry you,” she whispered.

The box fell from his hands. He moved back into his chair, hands folded neatly in his lap.

“Okay,” he said.

That shocked her back into awareness. “I- what? You just proposed, I said no and all you have to say is okay?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say. I don’t know what I want to say. I want to say that Jack won’t have a problem- in fact, he has and always will be my first priority so I wouldn’t have done this without his permission- but you already know that don’t you?”

She nodded. “I do.”

They both cringed at her choice of words.

“If it’s about changing your surname, I may have grown up with traditional views, but you don’t have to do that. Not if you don’t want to. We can combine them. We could be the Hotchner-Birch’s. Or you could just keep your own. I don’t really mind.”

“It’s not that either.”

“Jack isn’t expecting you to be his mother either. He’ll probably still call you El, just like I do.”

“It isn’t Jack.”

“That was my mother’s engagement ring. She gave it to me when I told her I wanted to propose to Haley. She said that hopefully it would bring me better luck than it had bought her. At the time, I hated the damn thing because it had come from my father. So I didn’t give it to Haley. Now I’m older I understand why she gave it to me. So the girl I married would always be able to have a piece of the woman that made me who I am. But if that weirds you out, we can go look for another one.”

“Would you stop being so good and kind for one fucking minute?” Ella snapped, unable to take anymore.

Aaron flinched, even after all the years that had passed. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Ella ran a hand through her hair. “God, no. Please don’t be sorry. This isn’t your fault. None of this is your fault. It’s just- I can’t. I can’t marry you and it’s nothing you have done. It’s got nothing to do with Jack either. I love that kid. And I’m so proud of how far he’s come. But I just- I can’t.”

“You’ve told me that. Multiple times now. Just tell me why. Tell me what happened and we can work through it. Because I love you. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you. And if anything happens to me, I want custody of Jack to go to you. Not the state.”

Aaron had never told her that before. They’d spoken at great lengths about children and both agreed that they didn’t want anymore. Jack was enough for both of them. And they’d talked about what would happen if for some reason, Ella had to care for Jack for extended amounts of time. But never like this.

He dropped his gaze when he saw the look on her face. “I’m sorry. You just said you don’t want to marry me, and here I am, dropping bombshells like that on you because that awful part of me wants you to feel guilty. Look, whatever you did, what happened, tell me. We can get through it.”

She hoped that he could abandon his morals long enough for her to not have to say the words. “Aaron, look at me. Please. Please, I need you to look at me.”

Tears were already forming in her eyes when he finally managed to meet her gaze.

“No,” he whispered.

He had seen that look twice in his life. Once when his mother turned to his father and asked why a young lady had phoned asking to speak to her husband. Once when Haley’s mobile had rung and she hadn’t been able to provide the reason behind the call. He knew what that look meant. He knew, and he wished he didn’t because he wasn’t sure he could handle it all over again.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I am so, so sorry and if I could take it back, I would but I can’t and all I can do is apologise and say that I regret it and I had never felt worse than in that moment.”

“Who was it? Was it someone I know?”

“God no. They would never.”

“Did they look like me?”

“Why are you asking me that?”

“Because I need to know. I need to know who this man was. I need to know why you were so willing to throw our entire relationship away for one night of pleasure. Or was it more? Has this been going on for a while? Am I just a joke to you? Is that what it is?”

“No! And it was a one-time thing, I swear. It only happened once. And if you really must know, yes. He looked like you. Are you happy now? I don’t want to have to relive that night because it was one of the worst nights of my life.”

“Of your life? I was going to marry you Eleanor. When- when even was this? And why?”

Eleanor’s emotions always got the better of her. “You want to know when? It was that case. That case where all the boys turning up dead and mutilated looked exactly like Jack. Like our son. And then the unsub got away. And I phoned you. I phoned you at least five times that night, but not once did you pick up, because you were at a faculty dinner, even though you promised me that you would always be there, no matter where you were. I needed to hear your voice telling me everything would be all right. I needed you, and you weren’t there.”

Aaron gripped the table tightly, all the colour in his face immediately vanishing. He remembered that night. He too regretted it. When he saw Eleanor’s first phone call, he’d started to excuse himself to answer it, knowing there could only be a few reasons for it. But then one of his colleagues had made a snide comment- one he couldn’t even remember now- and he’d put his phone on silent before tucking it away.

When Dave told him about the case because Eleanor couldn’t, he’d felt like the biggest piece of shit to ever exist. He still did. How had he fucked up so badly that Eleanor had slept with someone else?

No. That wasn’t on him. He’d screwed up, but she, and she alone, was responsible for her actions. It had been her decision to sleep with someone, not his.

“So you slept with someone else? Why not go to one of the team and tell them instead? Why did you have to sleep with someone?”

“I don’t know! I can’t explain what I did and I can’t justify it but I- you were the one that said we could move past this. You were the one that said, whatever I had done, we could work out together because you loved me. I still love you. I never stopped, not even when you went back to Haley all those years ago. We could make it work.”

Aaron laughed, but there was no humour. “No. No we can’t. Because that case was a month ago. You had a month to tell me, and you’re only telling me now because I asked you to marry me. What was your plan? Just not say anything till either I worked it out myself or you stopped feeling guilty?”

Eleanor didn’t have a response.

Aaron ran his hands through his hair, tugging it. Ella wanted to pry his hands away from it so he didn’t pull it out but that wasn’t her job anymore. It never would be again.

“I feel like such an idiot. You know, when you first kissed me, my first thought was: don’t do this. Because the first time you kissed me, you knew I had a girlfriend. And I was just as responsible because I didn’t pull away immediately, I know. But you kissed me. And in the back of my mind, I knew that there was every chance you would do the same again. I just never thought you actually would because I thought you’d grown up. I guess you haven’t.”

That was the problem with profilers, Eleanor thought to herself. They always knew exactly where to strike in order to cause the most pain. She just never thought Aaron would be the one doing it to her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, because what else could she say?

Aaron shook his head. “I don’t want to hear you say that anymore. You can- I’ll sleep in the guest bedroom until you find an apartment. But once you have, I never want to see you again. I’ll spare Jack the finer details of what happened, but it’ll be his choice whether or not he carries on talking to you. But never refer to him as your son ever again. He isn’t. Not anymore.”

Eleanor did not want his kindness. She wanted Aaron to make her pay. She wanted him to be angry, to hurl insults at her and tell her to get out, that he never wanted to see her again and that she would never be allowed within six feet of his son again.

But Aaron wouldn’t. He was too scared of what would happen if he lost control. He had been since Foyet. And she could mention that. She could mention every fear, every secret, every dream he’d ever shared with her.

She didn’t. She had already hurt him enough.

“I have friends not too far from here. I’ll pack enough for a week and that should be enough time to sort out something more permanent.”

If Aaron heard her, he didn’t say anything.

It only took her ten minutes to pack, which was one of the advantages of living with him. Everything had to be perfectly organised, which meant it was very easy to find things. When she entered the living room, he hadn’t moved. He was still staring at the ground. The ring was on the floor by the dining table, shining despite the darkness of the room.

It was rather ironic, this thing that had led to so much destruction being so beautiful.

“Goodbye Aaron,” Eleanor said, placing her keys on the coffee table.

Only when the door closed behind her for what would probably be the last time did Aaron Hotchner fall to his knees and sob, for the second woman he had loved and lost and for the mother Jack would never get to have.

#morehotchcontent2020 #day six: rocky relationships #aaron hotchner #aaron hotch hotchner #hotch #hotch x ofc #original characters #original female character #david rossi #jack hotchner #tw child abuse #cheating #angst #criminal minds #criminal minds fic #basically i was tired of hotch always being the one cheating #he wouldn’t do that

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reversecreek · 3 years

Note

lily for magda (thinking about figs feeling evil), tulip for cricket, marigold for ziggy, chrysanthemum for bradley, belladonna for nyla

lily : how does your muse view their mother ?

magda doesn’t know a lot abt her mum. she knows vague snippets n details bt they’re all very elusive. it’s kind of a tricky subject where her mum’s concerned bc when she was younger she’d come up w all these assumptions abt how her mum was n who she’d be if she were with her but the rational part of magda was like..... u don’t know any of this. ur literally making things up. it’s kind of hard for a kid to have that vital person missing from their life n to resist the urge to fill in the blanks with their own projections so the space feels less empty. it’s like having a tooth missing n ur tongue always going back to poke at the spot in ur gum. there’s a constant reminder of loss in that. magda knows her mum liked to sing bc her dad said once she’d always sing to her belly when she was pregnant. this is a lot of the reason why magda has always cared so much abt music bc she took this fact in her fist n grasped it tight n never let go n in a way grew parts of herself around it. it’s like............. i feel like her mum dying in childbirth gave her lots of issues when it comes to her identity n like. who she is n who she wants to be.......... bc of magda’s issues w her dad i feel like she got into this habit growing up of rly putting who her mum could have been on a pedestal n basing everything around that.... she’d be like I’m More Like Her (a belief which was only accelerated bc her dad would drunkenly say she looked so much like her) n cling onto that so she liked herself more bc the other option was her dad who she loves but he’s also an incredibly flawed person n they hv a complicated relationship...... i think as she’s gotten older she’s realised her mum cld very well have been that way too n putting people on pedestals isn’t the way to go about things but. idk. as a kid she was kind of obsessed w this idea of her n this idea that her mum being gone was the beginning n end of everything wrong in her life. for the most part now magda accepts she never knew her n sometimes even feels stupid for grieving her at all bc she never knew her to grieve in the first place but. there’s a tiny part of magda tht still hangs on to the comfort of what she could have had n it’s obvious by the fact she still keeps a photograph of her folded up in her pillow. she loves the mum she made up in her head n she wishes she got to meet her. there’s this sense tht maybe then she wouldn’t feel like this culmination of missing parts more than a person if she’d had that in her life. sighs n lks away holding my dyed black emo bang.....

tulip : how does your muse view people in general ?

cricket is like. the strangest little anomaly of a person FGHKSFGHSFKGH bc like. u would rly think that after everything he’s been thru he would just have this absolutely jaded view of people and life in general and i wouldn’t even......... blame him for it if he did like. i’d understand completely bc he’s experienced A Lot of bad stuff. n yet somehow he just.... idk. i think i wrote in a reply once this comparison of cricket n a cockroach in the sense that they have this incredibly reinforced exoskeleton n even if they’re stomped flat they can keep living n bounce back from it n that’s very him but it’s more specifically the hope inside him. he has this little candle lit that good things can still happen midst all of the terrible things n i genuinely can’t see it snuffing out at any point even tho sometimes he might want it to. sometimes i think he even gets into these frames of mind where it jst infuriates the fk out of him bc in his head he’s like why do u even think good shit can happen when u have sm overwhelming evidence to the contrary but then he’s also like. look u can dwell on the bad or u can notice the way the light falls thru the leaves in the trees and u can think to urself inside ur head as u listen to someone u love talking abt something that makes them happy ‘hey this feeling is nice n there’s a dozen others like it’. idk. against all odds he’s an optimist. he has tinnitus in his left ear n sometimes he pretends the ringing is angels trying to talk to him. he likes to search for the silver linings in things to make them bearable n that’s how he gets by. obviously he knows there’s evil in the world n that a lot of people can be shit bc he has firsthand experience w that but he also believes there are people to serve as the antithesis to that n he wants to focus on them bc like. why give bad stuff the time of day. not necessarily always a positive coping mechanism (if u bottle up bad feelings n thoughts they leak thru one way or another aka his overwhelming anxiety) but like.... i think there’s a lot of bravery in that n i respect him for it i won’t lie. he cld have become very bitter bt instead he’s like that quote that’s like 'the gentleness that comes, not from the absence of violence, but despite the abundance of it'. suddenly slaps his little anxious rump (supportive) (affectionate)

marigold : is your muse prone to jealousy ? how might they handle envious feelings ?

it’s hard to say w ziggy............... i feel like he doesn’t want to think he’s prone to jealousy bc he’s like i’m literally a god wdym i simply wld never give a fk bc i know i’m above all else................. but like. do u actually believe that ziggy. do u. FKGJHKSJGHFGSHFGKSHGKFHG. he’s good at convincing himself at least........... has me fooled too most of the time. bt. thinks abt this.............. i feel like he doesn’t tend to get jealous over ppl he hooks up w a lot of the time bt there’s definitely a few select ppl he might.......... n then he doesn’t rly know what that feeling is bc he’s so unused to feeling it so he’s like wtf why am i so fking pissed off over the thought of this person fking that person? like literally doesn’t even. connect the dots n make the logical conclusion bc it jst seems so bizarre n nonsensical to him. rly is awful at working out his own feelings like. he cld just suddenly explode one day n have to smash a bunch of shit in a junkyard n after his chest is heaving n he has all this broken stuff around him n he’s just like yo wtf was that man forreal lmfaoooooooooo..... like he just doesn’t even get how his own emotions work it’s tragic n it’s men for u. w anxious feelings he represses them a lot he doesn’t rly understand what they r or know how to recognise them........... i honestly feel like he has a lot of anxiety surrounding his mum esp w her dating n like some of the guys they’ve both had to deal w that she’s dated in the past.......... i doubt he processes that healthily or expresses it healthily either..... probably contributes to the tensions between him n his mum they hv a lot of underlying issues that come out in the form of bickering n petty disagreements...... probably a huge contributor to him acting out so terribly in high skl was just all this pent up worried energy with no means of making sense of itself or like. place to go. like shaking a coke bottle over n over n finally having to crack the lid n let it fizz on something. i also think he probably swallowed a lot of jealousy growing up whenever other kids had gd relationships w their fathers or parents in general probably ws kind of like lmfaooooo yo why don’t mine love me like that. in his head...... so ya. i think he copes w anxious feelings by acting out n also fucking if we’re being honest......... it helps him let off steam <3 king of clapping cheeks ig....

chrysanthemum : how does your muse express romantic love ? how do they feel about love as a concept ?

bradley is kind of hard to read romantically like from an outside perspective but slides on my thin rimmed spectacles n picks up my scalpel to delve right in to the nitty gritty of her brain... omg... that sounded... kind of scary actually but. it’s ok. basically settles in. bradley struggles to verbalise her feelings in this regard but also in a general sense honestly.... like she’s spent a lifetime having any vulnerable or negative feeling shut down....... her dad’s the type of personality where it’s like... u can’t win. even tho he’s narcissistic n thinks he’s a god if u compliment him or express affection he’ll act pleased but there’ll also be this register in his eyes where he thinks less of u for it. so this rly had a domino effect in bradley’s emotional expression in all grounds of life...... romance is probably the most frivolous concept to tony so bradley definitely internalised some of these views n wld feel stupid for ever taking anything seriously in that regard or rly investing herself..... she also just. idk. love has only ever left bite marks in bradley’s world so she’d kind of like ‘why wld i ever expose my tender spots n open myself up to someone just so they can sink their teeth in’. i will say tho that like. despite that she can in rare instances develop those feelings n it’s always like..... quite a struggle for her when she does. she doesn’t rly understand it or how to deal w it. she finds talking about it hard n she feels childish or weak in the eyes of whoever knows how she’s feeling. it takes a long time n a lot of work to earn it bt bradley in love is like. ur the only person on the planet who knows how gentle she can b. she’d literally like. touch the face of this one guy i wrote her being in love w when he was sad so gently it was shocking it ws like a love tht deep unlocked a whole other part of her she didn’t know existed. sex is a big part of her love expression jst like. a lot of it. so much. JHGSFKHGSFGKHFKGSHG let’s get it.......... she’s a ride or die n doesn’t do anything in halves. she has a nasty habit of pushing good things away n also wld probably do this to protect the other person bc her world is a never ending shit show with her father’s presence in every room even when he isn’t physically there. she wldn’t wna subject someone she loved to the danger of that bc she hates it enough herself so. idk. smiles w hand on hip. love isn’t something bradley thinks is on the menu fr her bc she’s only ever known it to be hard or mean n why bother trying when that’s the case. it feels like there’s always small print attached tht will hurt her in the end n nothing is free or genuine. very doomed outlook on love in general tbh.

belladonna : how does your muse respond to silence ? do they take comfort in soundlessness , or seek to fill the void with noise ?

nyla honestly doesn’t mind silence at all........ they always wake up rly early in the morning no matter what time they went to bed. it’s like someone programmed an oven timer into their brain n often when they wake up at 6am or something they’ll go on walks around irving tottering in their own little world which is quite a quiet experience in itself when the rest of the world’s asleep........... always off on impromptu adventures they came up w on the spot.......... sometimes they get lost in their own train of thought too so they just randomly fall silent bc they’re having a whole conversation w themselves inside their head or like. writing a whole children’s story abt an iguana in a trench coat floating in a hot air balloon smoking a little vintage pipe all the way to peru. honestly for every 1 thing nyla says there’s about 4987295749572592745 things they don’t say tht are x100 times stranger n more nonsensical they sort of let it all drift thru their head like an open sieve for the most part. having said tht i think in order to sleep at night they probably need some sort of white noise or smthn................. it’s handy living in a beach house bc they just leave the window open to let the ocean gush bt sometimes if they’ve snuck into like. mido’s bed fr the night or someone’s bed idk the sound of them breathing works too................. they used to always sleep w bob ross playing on loop n that was rly comforting to them esp bc he reminds them a lot of their dad w his calming voice n energy.............. sometimes they’d have taken smthn n they’d literally hallucinate it as their dad instead of bob ross n this happened so many times in a row fr a period of time tht when they finally watched it sober they were like wtf since when did they recast my dad in this show...... KJHFGSHFGKSHFKGH but also. frowns... bit sad considering.

#magda | memes #cricket | memes #ziggy | memes #bradley | memes #nyla | memes #death tw #grief tw #anxiety tw #fortyfivcs #drugs tw #abuse tw #i think thts all tws theyre like not covered in detail obviously bt still #i put under read more bc i wrote literal essays fr everything idk what happened to me....#also thank u fr the ask sexy :yum:

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