#i will of course give an analysis in the tags like i always do so hopefully it should answer any questions | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

prettyboykatsuki · 7 months

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TEXTBOOK CITATIONS ON IMMORAL SEX | S. GETOU ft. F. TOJI

✮ tags ; porn no plot, afab + fem!reader (good girl, little girl once sarcastically by toji, pretty), mild degradation (dirty girl, a bitch in heat), professor!getou + security guard!toji, dubcon, imbalanced power dynamics, age gaps(10+ years), mild coercion / blackmail, spit play, wet ‘n messy sex, face-fucking, oral (f +m!recieving), spanking, restraints, dirty talk, creampie / unprotected sex, 18+

✮ wc ; 10.6k

✮ synopsis ; You’re willing to do anything to pass your intro course. Whatever it takes. No cost is too high.

✮ a /n ; a comm for the beloved @fushironi !!! thank you for commissioning me and letting me post your work. if anyone is interested in a commission i will be reopening them at some point this month hopefully

A SIDE NOTE: THIS IS VERY CONSENSUAL!! but the relationship is inherently unethical so the dubcon tag is there. and this is. just smut. no plot no brain. just porn.

You're failing ethics.

You're failing ethics and failing it badly.

You refuse to take all of the blame for your failures. Some of it is your fault, but most of it is the fault of your good-for-nothing academic advisor. You're not sure what they get paid for, since it seems like there's an elaborate prank going on between staff and you're the only one not in on the joke. In what universe is it possible, plausible - that an individual could get paid for doing everything but their job?

Apparently this one. But whatever.

In your last semester of university, on the edge of graduating and totally on the right track - you're informed that you're not going to be able to graduate in the expected time frame because you are missing a single course. You learn this information about two days before registrations close, which means all the meaningful classes contributing to your major are booked and busy. Everything is full, and everything that isn't doesn't contribute to your degree. As in, even if you took it - it wouldn't give you what you need to graduate.

After a full-blown mental break, a long night crying yourself to sleep in your dorm, and an egregious amount of begging - you managed to snag yourself a class. It wasn't ideal by any stretch of the imagination, and it did put quite the strain on your schedule. Straight out of your 8am lab - you had to speed walk to the other end of campus and make sure you made it to lecture. The lecture time itself was an hour and twenty minutes, attendance mandatory, twice a week - which meant you had to delay lunch again till afterwards and learn on empty fumes till 1 pm.

Still, better than not graduating at all.

You'd hoped (expected?) that the course itself would be about average in coursework. For one, it's an intro class. Intro to Ethics or PHIL-2467, with Professor Getou Suguru. Secondly, the actual listed coursework seems simple enough. Discussion boards, reading analysis, and a few papers made up for most of the grade. The expectations were outlined as clearly as they could be.

You didn't really know anything about Professor Getou at the time, only that his ratemyprofessor described him as somewhat strict but mostly good.

In any case, you'd consider yourself lucky. And in an effort not to freak out about your circumstances, you'd practically chanted to yourself each night the same mantra. Everything was going to be fine. You've taken nearly 120 hours of coursework, and a little extra time won't kill you. At the start of the semester, you fully believed it too. Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and utterly naive.

How could a single course torment you like this? You hadn't the faintest clue. At first, it struck you as odd that the course felt as difficult to grasp as it did. The readings were complex and extremely long but always said a lot of nothing. Much of your grade was dependent not only on assigned work but participation and discussion. The paper criteria was only simple on the surface, but proved to be too lengthy to comprehend and too difficult to fulfill.

Long story short, the class was kicking your ass. And the ass-kicking slowly progressed into a failure so bad it was laughable. You're in your final year, and that means taking a lot of difficult and specified courses in relation to your major. You were at the point where your classmates were starting to thin out, and you were seeing the same group of people you had as a freshman. As far as prioritizing goes, a 3-credit hour course that isn't technically meaningful to you falls to the very bottom of your priorities. You're more concerned with things like job-hunting and finishing your capstone and all the stuff related to your actual career.

So you've been half-assing all the papers and exams, falling asleep in class, and lowkey straight up ignoring the weekly discussion boards.

However, above everything else, the worst part of your class is your professor. Professor Getou Suguru. PhD in Comparative Ethics with a Masters in Cognitive Science.

You didn't really have a chance to speak with any of your friends about Professor Getou, despite it being in your best interest - because you only knew you had the class two days before it started. You'd come to learn only two things about him after attending. First, he's a complete hardass when it comes to grading any assignments, and second most of his merit comes from the fact he is ridiculously good-looking.

He can't be any older than his late thirties or early forties, which means he's young. Young enough to be attractive but old enough for most of your peers to thirst for him in unhealthy ways. He's at least a decade and a half older than you, and by god does he make it clear.

What they don't tell you about college is that there's nothing that can make or break a class more than your professor. Everyone is always too worried about everything else, about getting their schedule right - that they often overlook this basic tenet of college life even though it's so crucial. The worst part is that while various websites rating your professors are helpful, you won't truthfully know how you feel about a professor until you've met them in a classroom. You've had professors with lower ratings be absolute angels, and professors with higher ones being some of the most useless in your entire academic career.

You were hoping that Professor Suguru would be what you expected. That his astounding 4.5/5 would be a meaningful assessment of his character, that he would be tolerable and polite and understanding and that your semester would be smooth sailing because of it.

But of course, of course - that couldn't be further from the truth.

You don't know at what point exactly your relationship to Professor Suguru became as sour as it is right now. There's no real pivotal movement where mild intolerance became full-blown and outright distaste. But part of it, you know, stems from the fact your beloved professor is a snake.

You have no idea how no one else notices it. It genuinely feels like you're the only one who catches the subtleties of his behavior. There's just something about him that's a little…off. The irony isn't lost on you. He's an ethics professor, but something about him makes alarm bells go off in your head. A walking red flag, though a handsome one. He's off in a subtle way, but more than that - he's very openly smug to every single one of his students. It's just that no one else seems to really care. The air of pretension that surrounds him in his every movement is suffocating. Maybe that's part of the charm, if the way girls flock to him after class is anything to go by.

Even so, you just know there's something deliberate about his casual cruelties. He always seems to pick out the quiet kids, and from the beginning of your semester to now - he always, always manages to single you out of the crowd of students. In every class, in every discussion, in every chance he has to make you out to be a troublemaker he will.

Yes, you don't really have any idea how it started. But you've been keeping a long record of every single act of personal terror that damned man has been inflicting on you since the start of the course, and you're not unconvinced that your shit grade is in part because he wants to see you grovel in front of him.

The first time it happened - you figure it was a coincidence. He had called you out in class after you missed a discussion board. You hadn't done the reading, and it wasn't obviously humiliating but it singled you out all the same. When you fumbled coming up with an answer, he gave you a smug smile that so quickly morphed into a fake sincere one, you wondered if you were imagining things.

The second time was when you came in late after a walk of shame, and Professor Suguru greeted you by the door by asking if those were the same clothes you wore yesterday. After being completely mortified by it, the once dark gaze immediately rescinded to his usual fake-calm self. It was suspicious, but not the concrete evidence you needed.

And the third time was after your first project of the semester. Your grade was lower than you deserved, and you knew it - so you went to his office hours to bitch and moan to get it bumped up. But he wouldn't budge, saying that he thought his assessment was accurate. Made a smug face as he told you he just didn't think you thought your points out through. Unfair critiques shielded by flowery words and polite gestures. It was that moment that cemented the dislike, though it wasn't the start.

The beginning of the end, so to speak.

Ever since then, you've harbored nothing but dislike for him. You can see past his pretty face and you don't see anything good. You've had unpleasant professors before, but none have ever targeted you so specifically. None of your previous professors, even at the worst, seemed to hold such an unbelievable personal grudge.

You're all alone, fighting an invisible battle.

The worst of it though, is that you simply couldn't be bothered to give a shit about it for most of the semester. You had way too much going on, so you just had to put up with the inexplicable dread of attending that class until you had to deal with it again eventually.

And after months and months of avoiding the issue head-on, you're at a point where you can no longer do so. Your grade is officially below a C after bombing your last quiz, and there's only 5 weeks left until your semester is over and you're barred from graduation.

And you have no fucking idea what you should do about the situation.

There's a subtle pit of dread in your stomach as you enter your first philosophy lecture of the week.

For the first time since the start of the semester, Professor Getou doesn't antagonize you as soon as you enter the door. In a strange way, this makes you kind of uncomfortable. He gives you his usual fake smile, but the fact he's gone out of his way to leave you alone makes you feel like he's planning something.

You brush your paranoia aside as you take a seat in the back of your class. You don't have any friends in this lecture, at least not ones you do more than greet. You sit closer to the back of the lecture hall, tucked into a corner and up a few steps.

The charms on the end of your book bag zippers click together as you take your seat. You open your laptop - pulling up the lecture slides to pretend to study while opening 2048 to play while Professor Getou goes on about his business. You're hoping he's going to go easy on you today, and that his lack of interference is a sign of mercy.

More people start to trickle in and the classroom is the usual amount of packed it is by this point in the semester. The last day to drop passed last week, so the number of students has decreased despite it being spring semester.

Your professor starts his lecture as soon as the clock hits 11:30am. You look up from your computer, watching him as he sets up his slide deck and waits for all the conversation to settle before he begins talking.

He catches your eyes briefly before he continues, but he holds it for long enough that you know it's intentional. You frown at him, and it almost looks like he laughs - but you can't be sure your mind isn't tricking you into thinking that.

"Good morning everybody," His voice is smooth and pleasant - hair tied up neatly. He's wearing his usual attire. Black slacks, and a loose-fitting white shirt with some kind of canvas shoe. "How's everybody hanging in there? Good? Bad?"

He takes a look around the room, gauging peoples replies before chuckling.

"Not in good shape huh? Stick it out, a few more weeks and you'll be out of here. Today, we're going to continue on into section five of our coursework - the shortest of all of our other sections," He grabs something that clicks the slide into the next one, a few images next to a wall of text "We have a lot to cover in the last few weeks, but I want to start with a refresh of what concepts we've been learning for the last few weeks."

The swiftness in the way his eyes land on you is comical in its predictability. You give him an uncomfortable half-smile as he calls your name and brings the class's attention your way. A few looks of pity don't go unnoticed. You stiffen, straighten your back as he says your name slowly before asking.

"Do you think you can tell me, what are the four core structures that define modern Japanese philosophical thinking?"

There's real, uncomfortable weight to his gaze that makes you choke. You pull back slightly.

"Uhm, well - there's Shintoism, Confucianism, Buddhism and western ideology. Primarily German idealism."

He gives you a smug look, the same one you always see before it fades off to an uncannily brilliant smile. Not a sincere one, because when is it ever - but there all the same.

"Someone's been studying hard huh? But you are correct. We've spent the majority of this class going over the first three. How Shinto tradition, Confucianism, and Buddhism were experienced in Japan - isolated from Anglo-Saxon influence for the first few centuries of its establishment. We've also studied the vague historical timeline of these influences, mostly focusing on modern philosophy. We've covered Edo period philosophy as a precursor for what we know and understand now."

You can say a lot about Professor Getou, but more than anything - he has a certain way of commanding the room's attention that never lets you get completely comfortable. He has an air of charisma you've never seen in your life and being in close proximity to it makes you feel like you're being swept in by waves larger than life.

You fidget almost anxiously as you wait for him to continue his lesson.

"Our last few weeks are going to cover the culmination of your previous lessons, and what dictates both national morality and the hierarchy of modern Japanese social mores - Bushido. The way of the Samurai."

Professor Getou continues with this slide deck as he outlines Bushido conceptually. From its existence as a moral code in late 12th century Japan, to the many misconceptions about the strictness in which it was adhered. He starts the lessons like he starts many others, explaining misconception and myth before touching the surface of the subject at hand.

It's in his nature to advocate for the whole truth. From the start of your classes to now, Professor Getou always places the same emphasis. If only that truth is unable to be understood without opposition. It's like his whole being is constructed by it, opposition that is always radical and jaw-dropping. You've known this about him since he voiced his open critique for certain ideas about social welfare and about the emphasis of national morality.

You can't be certain what he really believes - only that he'll voice his views as critically as possible, if only to stir the room.

"Bushido is the heart and soul of modern and postmodern Japanese ethics, but it remains critically undefined despite its usage and citation functionally. Other philosophical schools of thought have strict definitions - Bushido is evolutionary in nature. Inazo Nitobe is primarily credited with the modern and popular interpretation of Bushido, but has received criticism for its obvious influence from Western ideas, and its comparison to chivalry."

Professor Getou sits back on the edge of his desk with a look on his face.

"The tendency of Japanese philosophy to lean into metaphysics does not align with the many values of infrastructure and military present in the culture now, but I'm not going to critique the philosophy for you," He skips to the next slide, your last project of the semester on the wall "For the sake of brevity, I'm going to have you write a paper on one of the eight outlined ideals in Nitobe's work, and I want you to reflect on that ideal in your paper."

A collective whispering erupts in the class as people stress about the assignment of their final few weeks. Not unexpected given the circumstances. Professor Getou doesn't flinch as he waits for the room to settle down.

"This will be your final project in this classroom, and will count as your final grade. On one hand, doing a good job on it means you have nothing to worry about for the last few weeks. On the other it's make or break," He locks eyes with you again as he says this, startling you as his smile grows coy and inauspicious "So if you're in need of a good grade to pass you, I'd recommend coming to see me during office hours or during one-on-one time so I can get you the grade you need. We'll discuss more at the end of class, but we've gotta get through more lectures so you can get an idea of what you can pick."

He gives you one another look, another pointed and obviously direct look, before he proceeds on with his lecture. It gives you a bad feeling in your stomach, and maybe you're being too self-centered thinking he's focusing too much on you.

But you can't help it, swallowing down your uncertainty as you continue on with the lesson.

You need to pass this class.

___

You meet up with Nobara after the fact.

She's a good sounding board for your problems as usual. Where you're always looking for the most civil solutions, she's good at giving it to you straight on what you should do. She's no bullshit and you like that about her. Whenever you need a kick in the ass or an ounce of courage, she's the person for the job.

So after meeting up for lunch, ranting again about Professor Getou (for the hundredth—no, thousandth time), and whining about his weird behavior, you're expecting some semi-sound, if not mean advice on what you should do.

"Have you thought about just fucking him?" She says instead, her voice full of sincere boredom. It comes out so casually, like she's relaying the news cycle to you - and you can't help but be utterly shocked listening to it. "Not that it was my first suggestion, but I mean…it's getting ridiculous."

"Hello? Where the hell did that come from? What do you mean just fucking him?"

She gives you a sideways glance of disdain as if you were the one saying something unreasonable. She leans forward into her hand mirror, gluing on her eyelashes for her afternoon date with Maki. She scoffs when she realizes your shock is genuine.

"Are you serious? Does this not read as an elaborate scheme for this total jackass to fuck you?"

You're flabbergasted. Surely she's not being serious with you.

"Nobara."

"Haah? Tch. Don't make that face. It's a gross abuse of his power but well, he's not ugly. If he were any younger of a professor, would you like… not assume that was the end game?"

"Nobara, he's a professor of ethics. His whole career is ethics."

"Yeah. Like. The perfect cover for wanting to screw his wide-eyed, desperate students. He's a hot, young professor. Not my type but you get me. Don't you think it's a little naive to assume his personal vendetta against you is shit, I don't know… totally lacking that motive? Think with your brain, not your tender little heart for a minute, okay?"

"It's not that!"

"Really? Just like your relationship with Mr. Fushiguro is totally platonic?"

"I said it was one-sided, not platonic."

"You're my whole heart and soul, you know that right? I didn't freak on you when you said you had a crush on Megumi's deadbeat dad. You're my salvation from the idiots we call guy friends. So I'm saying this with love, and not as the complete bitch you know me as - you're being dumb."

"Nobara, are you seriously saying you think this whole thing is about him wanting to," You can barely even get the words out. You're not that much of a prude but god. "Wanting to have… sex with me?"

"Yeah. What else would it even be? I think an awful man is interested in screwing you - a hot, capable twenty-something. Are you stupid? Is that like, sooo impossible for you to consider?"

"Well it's not the first place I would think to go, that's for sure."

"And that's your whole problem. Don't get me wrong, again, totally gross. Is it like.. a total abuse of his authority? Yeah. But that doesn't have anything to do with you personally. If I'm right, and you fuck him - you get a good lay and to graduate. And you need both."

"Nobara!"

"Don't be mad, I love you, okay? But I'm thinking about your future and your prospects. There's nothing wrong with it on a technical level."

"That is so untrue and you know it—"

"Look. I don't like it. I think it's a weak move and kind of corny and gross. But you've been planning your big graduation for years. And it's not a bad opportunity, and you're not a complete idiot. You said before that he's never inappropriate with the other girls right? You might even be the only one. As far as I'm concerned, there's no reason for you to not get laid and pass."

"Oh, so the student-teacher thing isn't reason enough?"

"Not if you wanna graduate it's not."

The two of you remain at a stand-still as his words trap you into a corner. How the hell do you even deal with this information? And how on Earth is she so sure of herself anyways? You think you're pretty good with signs, at least about things like this.

But it doesn't feel like flirting. He's never flirted with any of the students in class, despite how much they seem to fawn over him. Could this weird, psychological dance you've been doing for the last twelve weeks be some sort of unspoken foreplay ritual?

The more you think about it, the less it seems implausible to you. There's a wave after that, some cross between impending doom and shameful arousal blooming up inside of you as everything hits you all at the same time.

When you return to reality after being trapped in your thoughts, Nobara gives you a mindful (almost pitiful) smile and shakes her head. You frown at her in reply, squeezing the bridge of your nose.

"If it were like literally anyone else, I'd totally tell them it's a bad idea. But it's not like you're going on to date him, and you're what - 24? because of your gap year so you're not a preteen like some of the freshmen in your class. I just don't see any reason not to go for it."

You tamp down the small voice in the back of your head, encouraging you to do - and instead ask her a follow-up question.

"...Do you think I should attend his office hours tomorrow, yes or no? I have to email him by tonight to get the one on one."

"Yeah. Yes. And shave before you go."

You decide, for the sake of your sanity and everyone else's - to ignore Nobara's odd implications about what Professor Getou wants from you and to attend his office hours.

(That's a partial lie, you figure - given the fact you did shave, and shower before attending. You're wearing something kind of nice underneath. But you still don't think he wants to fuck you. It's more of a safety precaution than anything else.)

You made the game plan last night that you would go, present your idea, and then beg him to be kind to you during the grading process. You even developed a list of things to sob and cry about it to generate something of a sob story if everything went awry. You've forsaken your pride. The only thing that you need to get out of this meeting is a passing grade.

And that is, of course, by any means necessary.

Fearing for your life, the state of your mood improves as you approach the building hosting Professor Getou's office. Of all of the people you interact with semi-regularly on campus (all of which you are quite fond of), Nobara wasn't lying about your affection for campus security guard - Toji Fushiguro.

He's an older man. Older than you by double digits, and from what you can tell - older than even your professor. You've been fond of him ever since he brought you back to your dorm after a horrible break-up with your ex as a sophomore. He's got a rough edge, and there's plenty of unverified rumors of his past. You know that he has something of a criminal record too.

But for all of those rumors, and for all the things you hear about him - he's been one of the highlights of your campus experience. You've had a one-sided school-girl crush on him ever since that night, because you were sober enough to catch his body and how it feels. He was strong. Not in an average way. He made it so effortless when he was carrying you home in his arms - and it's not the first time you've seen him lug around things at least over 300 pounds like they were nothing.

But attractiveness aside, he is uncharacteristically good at cheering you up. He's funny and witty, all while maintaining a cool facade. He's endearing in his own way too, and you're a little head over heels for him though you'd never push yourself to make the first move.

Still, when he sees you come towards the building - he greets you with a wide smile. The scar over his busted lip - split open and welcoming as you run up to him for a hug. He's normally patrolling around campus, so it feels lucky to catch him where you least expect.

He wraps you up with a single arm, your feet temporarily lifting from the ground before you get put back down again.

"Mr. Fushiguro, what are you doing here?"

"I got moved over here since there's been some rumor about someone stealing from the labs upstairs. So I'm on lock up duty for this building 'till it gets fixed up and solved," He says, voice as smooth as ice "What about you sweetheart? It's gonna get dark out soon."

"Ah, I have office hours with Professor Getou today. I need to consult with him about a paper."

"That right? Just gonna be you in there, then?"

"Yep. I'm gonna go in there and beg him for a good grade on our next assignment. So for the sake of my sanity, please wish me luck?"

Mr. Fushiguro tilts his head to one side, grinning.

"Wouldn't that mean you graduate sooner instead of later? Can't wish ya luck on that." He says, making you flush and letting the feeling linger before continuing "Just kiddin'. A pretty face like yours should do you just fine. Knock 'em dead."

"I feel a lot better about it with your encouragement." You say honestly. Mr. Fushiguro gives you a laugh.

"Treat me to something if my luck makes any difference. And hurry in. Last thing you'd wanna do is be late."

You nod, wide-eyed and dazed by how charismatic he is before you rush into the building. It's silent, given how late in the school day it is. Most people have already gone home, with the exception of the other poor souls likely chasing down their professors for the same reasons as you.

You feel an overwhelming sensation of dread as you encroach upon Professors Getou's office. There's no one else in the close vicinity, only a few closed classrooms and students who are passing by the small corner where his door resides - most of which are making their way to leave.

You decide to take a deep breath, calming your shaken nerves before knocking politely once on his door and entering the room.

Professor Getou's office looks like how you'd expect it to look. It's clean, and sleek - and lacking almost completely of items of personal effect with the exception of his desk. It's the first time you've ever been inside of the room before, but it smells distinctly of him. He has that same scent surrounding him, like flicks of nicotine and a hint of bergamot. Sweet with the taste of metallic bitterness, like blood and sugar.

You feel the back of your throat bob as you see your Professor sitting at his desk. It's lacking his usual gracefulness. His shirt is unbuttoned down by three entire buttons, and his slacks seem looser. Most notable is his hair - classically long, now in a loose bun with pieces falling all on his shoulders and rolling down his neck.

You think of what Nobara said to you earlier in the day alone, a strange and overwhelming sensation of lust and embarrassment making it difficult for you to open your voice and talk.

It's Professor Getou who greets you first. He looks up from whatever he was reading and looks at you from where you stand awkwardly at his door. His smile widens, though it's just by a little.

"Ah, I was wondering when you'd be here. Looks like you're right on time." He says first, sitting up in his chair but not bothering to gather himself in any way otherwise "Come on in and sit. I assume you're here to talk about your grade."

You sit across from him hesitantly, hands folded in your lap as you put your bag down on the floor.

He studies you quietly. There's a long stretch of silence, where neither of you do anything but sit in each other's company.

He breaks the silence first.

"So, while I have a guess," He says, elbows on his desk "Do you want to talk to me about what you're here for?"

You've practiced the dialogue in your head so many times now. What to do and how to say what you need too, but the words seem to fizzle out completely when it's time to really say them. Leaving nothing but uncertainty, you open your mouth only to close it once again.

"Uhm," Your voice strains trying to make the words out into a coherent sentence. "I came to talk about my paper. And my grade, like you mentioned in class."

"So you decided to heed my advice? Good girl, that was a smart choice," You try not to be taken aback by the pet name - unsure if it's as inappropriate as you think it is "Do you know what virtue you want to cover?"

"I thought I would pick uhm, righteousness - and then pull from some of the Western ethics we learned about. Making uh, connections between deontological ethics and duty and how it relates to the defined idea of righteousness," You explain nervously, an uncomfortable laugh bubbling out of your throat "How practicing duty and righteousness relate to each other."

"Hmm. Sounds like you've had time to think about it a little, then."

"I uhm, haven't finished the reading but I did take a look over my section to see if I could make it work."

"I think you have something to work with. You'll need to straighten out the thesis of your paper into something more tangible. I know that's an ironic ask. But I think it's a good idea," He gives you a brief glance, studies you with eyes. Snake-like. Something coils inside of you, tickles and brushes against your skin and makes the hairs on the back of your neck raise "It seems like you have something more to tell me, though."

Do you? Is there anything more there? The answer lies indifferently on a scale from obviously to no. nothing at all and it haunts you that he's able to pick it out.

"It's just well. Uhm. You know, I don't have the best grade in this class so I was more prepared to go down with my grade. You approved quicker than I thought you would."

"Your grade is pretty abysmal. Did you come in here planning to beg?"

You refrain from an instant yes, even though it's what you feel. Something about the way he says it makes your stomach clench. Your heart quickens. Your tongue feels too heavy in your mouth as you laugh uncomfortably.

"Something like that? Uhm, or at least try to hash things out between us. I know our relationship over the c-course of the semester has been kind of sour so I…"

He cuts you off.

"Has it?"

Your brain stutters to halt.

"Uhm. Yes?"

It's unpredictable, utterly and completely - the way he reflects on your words like you've said something incomprehensible. You aren't sure if that's sincere. You can't be sure if any of the words out of his mouth are. But he doesn't seem like he's lying. Your mind flashes to Nobara, and you find yourself speaking before you can stop it. It comes out like a flood.

"I j-just always assumed you singled me out in class because you didn't like me? I don't mean to be accusatory, though."

"I'm afraid you've got the wrong idea," He says, shaking his head "I don't harbor any negative feelings for you at all."

"Oh," You say, eyes falling down to your lap again "Right, then."

"You must be desperate for that passing grade, hm? If you're meeting with a professor you think hates you."

You glance at him.

"Well, yes. I want—need to pass this class. I've already planned my graduation for this semester."

"And you'd be willing to do anything for that, is what you're implying?"

"Yes," You say, with a sudden rush of unwavering confidence "Anything."

"Let me ask you another question, then." He lets his elbows rest on the edge of his table, a familiar coy smile "Do you think there's any other reason for why I've been paying special attention to you, aside from me disliking you? You're a smart girl, so I'm sure you'll be able to figure it out."

The weight of his words don't go unnoticed. The air feels heavy as it hangs between you. He couldn't be implying it so directly could he? Your mind drifts back to Nobara's warning to you, and your breath hitches. Your eyes widen as you glance up for the first time and give him a look of mild distress.

And he smiles. His grin widens as soon as it dawns on you.

"Seems like you've reached an important conclusion," He says, casually - as he sits up in his chair and leans back. Stretched like nothing could get in his way "Why don't you share with the class?"

"You," Your voice is a nervous tremor. You must be crazy. You must be completely out of your mind "...To sleep with me?"

"See? I told you, you're a smart girl."

The question is a burning one. One you've been wanting to ask since you started thinking about it last night.

"B-but…why? And why me? A-and,"

"You have a tendency for being combative. You know that? An air of defiance. I can tell you're a little older than your peers. A little wiser, and a little more knowing of when to ask for help," Getou outlines, staring you down "And seeing you with that sense of desperation was exciting for me. I'm a man of simple tastes. At my age, I know what I want."

"And I like when tough, combative, clever women turn into babbling, desperate, needy girls. I'm quite fond of it, actually."

He's detrimentally serious. Your stomach flips.

"Do you want to pass this class?" He asks you, an air of confidence surrounding him. You close your eyes, unsure if you can call it coercion when you're feeling so terribly willing about it.

"Yes. I need to pass."

"Then come up here," He gestures, widens his legs and leans back in his chair "And sit."

Your body is burning. You don't know if you're even really in the situation, or if you've daydreamed it into something impossible. Something phantom moves you. Stands you to your feet shakily before walking in short strides. Professor Getou looks at you from where you stand over him.

His hand brushes your outer thigh, patting it.

"Sit."

So you sit. You spread yourself and straddle your professor - and the reality dawns on you the minute you touch what you're doing. You haven't gotten laid in a bit, and he's nothing like anyone you've ever slept with. You feel out of your element. You get the impression he's a man, a grown one. There's a confidence in him that looms and looms and looms, overshadowing any of your doubt.

He's sexier up close. There's the faintest trace of smile lines on his expression as you look down at him. He guides your arms to loop around your neck, and holds your hips with his hands.

Then you feel it, almost instantly - something hard and bulging pressing against the seam of your pants and against your crotch. He's already half-hard and he hasn't even kissed you. He grins at you lazily, like a cat with cream.

"I'll pass you as soon as I put it in," His hands are so big - long, slender fingers gripping your ass "And give you extra credit when you cum for me. How's that sound?"

You feel dirty. It's all happening so fast. Almost vulgar, but it's impossible to feel cheap. To believe in the wrongness of it when Professor Getou is so undeniably sexy. Wrong, on so many levels, to do this for the sake of your grade. Or just in general. Yet you want it, yearn for it, find the culmination of all your annoyances melting as he graces you himself.

"I wanna pass," You say, uncharacteristically nervous about everything. You add the next part a little quieter "...I want it."

"What do you want, exactly?"

"Want you to fuck me." You admit, against your better judgment "Please?"

"Gonna make a real pretty mess out of you," He says, voice smooth and serene. You look down at him. His knuckles brush against your jaw, on your cheek before his thumb holds on your lower mouth. His fingers push past the edge of your lips, sliding against your tongue and gently running along your teeth. He gags you on it, so slightly - enough to startle you but not enough to hurt. You feel spit pour from your lips.

Thick messy strings of drool drip down the sides of your mouth. You want to back away in shame. But there's an air of intention behind the gesture. It's deliberate, the action - the mess and how it runs down your neck. Before you know it, he's kissing you in that same state.

Professor Getou kisses like he's done it before.

His hands grip on your ass as he kisses hot and heavy. Self-assured, he sucks and bites at your mouth - sticking his tongue in and mixing his saliva with yours in a way that feels downright dirty. Yet it makes you throb, white-hot flames licking at the back of your thighs. The sparks of arousal crawl up your skin.

Your nerves tighten as Professor Getou cups your face with one palm, kissing you with fervor. You melt into him, arms wrapped tightly around his neck.

"Been thinking about what you would look like bent over my desk all semester," He says as he pulls away, looking on with admiration at your messy complexion "You wanna go on ahead and show me?"

Another wave of embarrassment washes over you, but you find yourself standing to your feet. Sliding your sweats off down your legs - your lower half is left bare with the exception of your feet. You lay or stomach on his desk, the cold wood sending chills up your whole body and your stomach and tits lay flat and squishy against the hard material. You stand, shoulder width apart, and present yourself in front of him.

"That's what I like to see," His voice is rich and deep as he speaks. You can feel him inch towards you, pulling you apart with his palms before his hand comes down on your ass in one hard motion. The noise echoes against the walls of the room "See, I knew you could listen well when you had to."

You don't say anything in reply, pressing your cheek against the desk.

"W-what do I call you?" You ask, your voice trembling. You feel his fingers against the seam of your panties. He snaps the cotton waistband against your skin before humming thoughtfully, a light tap to your ass.

"Getou is fine. Suguru is too. Sir if that makes you more comfortable."

Getou makes a show of fondling you, though you can't see it - you can feel the way his eyes nearly swallow your naked lower half. How his fingers touch and prod all of your sensitive places, with some kind of keen observation. Everything Getou says is like that, keen and particular.

"Such a pretty pussy on you. Would've been such a waste if you didn't come to me."

You don't bother to ask what he means by that. Behind you, there's a noise. Of a chair rolling back, and the dull thud of knees hitting the ground. Before you know what's happening, there's a face dangerously close to your clothed pussy. The minute you try to squirm, there's a tight grip keeping you in place. He takes a deep breath. Without any real hesitance, you feel his tongue lick across the clothed material.

In one fell swoop, he pulls your panties to one side and kisses your clit without any more real introduction. You're gripping the edge of the table you're bent over as you feel his tongue slide against the wet folds of your pussy, making your voice cry out involuntarily. Normally people would urge you to be quiet, but you got the feeling he didn't care if anyone heard you crying out for him. You get a second wave of intuition telling you he might even like it.

A sensation of bliss washes over you as he sucks hungrily at your cunt. It feels good enough to be holy. There's such immense expertise in it that you can't help but succumb to it completely. The warm, heavy muscle gliding over sticky folds.

You're so lost in the pleasure, your mind completely blocks out the intrusion. The sense that would detect another person in the room disappears completely. You only know because of Getou, the way he stops and scoffs. It forces you to blink your eyes open. He speaks before you get the chance.

"What are you doing here?"

You recognize the voice instantly, and your heart drops through your stomach.

"Thought I heard a ghost howling," Mr. Fushiguro says, his voice is rougher and deeper and older "Turn out it was just a little girl wanderin' into the woods."

"If you can see I'm busy, why're you still here?"

You can't help but feel the second wave of overwhelming shock as you sit there, naked and unafraid. Still, they stand like nothing is wrong. Chat like they know each other somehow, but you have no idea in which way. All you can focus on is the bubbling, nauseating shame.

"Oh god." You voice, but both others ignore. Mr.Fushiguro speaks first.

"This one is off-limits, Suguru. What kinda professor goes around fuckin' their innocent little students?"

"Just the one, Mr. Fushiguro. And I'd like to get back to business."

"Ah, no way I'm letting you off the hook. I could report this y'know? Make headlines. Ethics professor coerces student into sexual activity. It'd be big.

Your heart drops.

"Fuck off, would you? Does she look coerced?"

A beat of silence. "Nah. Not with the way she's twitchin'. But it's not fun if I just let you go. How about you tap me in and I'll keep your little secret hm? She's gotta cute crush on me already."

Your heart flounces around in your chest, a muffled noise of shock escaping your lips as you squirm to move but are held, still, so firmly in place. Your expression and feelings all go through 5 stages of grief before settling at dumbfounded. They don't especially ask for your input, but you hear Professor Getou behind you.

"Fine, if it'll get you to shut up. And I'm fucking her first."

Strange. Nothing about today makes any sense. You don't miss the almost childish sense of competition in Getou's voice that changes your view of him in an instant. Humanizes him in the strangest and most unrecognizable ways. It lacks his usual virtue.

Mr. Fushiguro walks up in front of you, imposing. He's grinning, a well-worn smile on his face that you know. He helps you up, and you keep yourself upright on your arms as he grabs your chin with his palms. You look up at him wide-eyed, unsure of what to do.

"Dirty fucking girl aren't ya?" He says, though he almost sounds like he's impressed with himself

"You into older men or is it a coincidence you're screwing 'im for your grade?"

You're speechless, and you moan a little pathetically as Getou doesn't stop eating you out. This only seems to make Mr. Fushiguro even more excited. You look up at him through wet lashes, unsure of what to do.

"Don't mind either way, just curious. Guess I'm a little sad 'cause I thought your little heart eyes around me made me special," He tells you this looking down at you, eyes locked. You can tell he's just teasing you, and it makes you twitch "But I guess that's not true, is it?"

"You're different. I uhm. Well it's true at least."

"Yeah? You're just letting both of us fuck you 'cause you're like a bitch 'n heat?"

You flush. He gives you a smile and a well-meaning laugh that makes your body feel warm with heat.

"Mind if we're a little rough on you, sweetheart?"

You shake your head.

"Good. Stick your tongue out and open your mouth for me then."

You listen, oblige the instructions almost obediently. Your face is still covered with spit from before. You watch idly, intently - as Mr. Fushiguro pulls his cock out from his black pants. The loose material covers him well, but as soon as they're down past his thighs - the outline of his cock borders on intrusive. Your eyes widen, fluttering and unfocused because it's hard to think about anything while feeling such intense pleasure.

But Mr. Fushiguro is captivating as he pulls himself out for you. His cock is thick and heavy, protruding but too much that it can't stand up on its own. Weighed down by gravity, you stare at it wide-eyed. It's the size of your forearm, so thick you can't possibly imagine what it feels like.

Your heart stammers.

"It won't fit in my mouth." You say, gasping for air as if you're already suffocating on it "You're—you're so huge."

He laughs with an edge of snark. You blink at him in complete seriousness, taken aback. He lets the tip of his cock tap the plushness of your cheek before pressing against your lips. You stare at him, almost afraid.

"Of course it'll fit," He says in confidence "Just gotta make sure you're relaxed. So relax, sweetheart, and open your mouth for me."

Hesitantly, you open your mouth wide. You feel the corners of your lips stretch around the intrusive, thick head of Mr. Fushiguro's cock. The taste of sweat and skin is invasive and heavy, violating your senses. Just the tip and it barely fits in your mouth. You try and concentrate, sticking your tongue out and curling it around the underneath of his cock, focusing on sucking just the tip. He groans above you, a hand on the back of your head. He doesn't force you down, but you can tell by the twitch in his fingers that he wants to.

"Look at you," He says, his voice coarse with restraint and desire "You're drooling on my cock while you're professors busy eatin' your pussy. Thought you were an innocent girl, but now I don't know what to believe."

He says this as he eases more into your mouth, slowly letting you adjust. He rocks his hips back and forth until you relax. You open yourself up, trying to focus on blowing him.

But a hand comes down on your ass, hard and heavy - making you yelp. The noise is muffled but audible. A short squeal, you can't turn your head to look

"Don't you think you two are getting too comfortable upfront without me? I'm the one who decides your grades."

"Maybe you're not doing good enough for her to care."

You can feel a strange sense of competition between them, but you're too occupied to ask about it. How do they know each other, and for what reason do they seem so automatically hostile? It bothers you, but you can't think about it too hard.

"That's not true. Her pussy is soaking fucking wet." He punctuates his words with a harsh smack against your cunt, the force rippling through your as you bend forward and choke "Almost as messy as her face."

He's quick, again, to latch himself to your clit. He flicks it with his tongue, licking it mercilessly as your brain starts to fog up with desire. Like he's trying to prove a point, you moan around Mr. Fushiguro's cock as your pleasure starts to thrum up again. The back of your legs tense, trembling as a knot begins to uncoil in your lower stomach. The cock in your mouth moves too, using the distracted moans to ease himself even deeper into the wet, arm cavern of your mouth.

Your head feels heavy, body weak as the both of them use you to their contents. Your stomach starts to stir as a familiar feeling of euphoria claws at you.

You cum for the first time like that, your body pressed against a wood desk - restrained and under careful watch of two men. Your whole body explodes - white, hot nerves fraying off and ricocheting off your ribs inside of you. Your insides shake as the wave of an orgasm washes over your entire body. You gasp, clenching down hard and gasping as tremors of orgasm pulse and push through your whole body. Something in you ignites as you grip the edge of the desk for your life, trying to keep yourself upright as Getou pushes you through the orgasm.

You've barely recovered when Mr. Fushiguros pulls out of your mouth, pressing his spit-soaked cock against your face and cheeks with a smile. You let it slide against your tongue, eyes fluttering open as your face gets covered in precum and saliva.

"You look so fucking filthy right now, you know that? But it looks good on you. I'm dying to fuck you."

"Mr. Fushiguro," You groan. He clicks his teeth.

"Toji's just fine sweetheart."

You whimper helplessly as you ride out your high. Behind you, your professor pulls away. You peek behind you to see him, flush as he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

Toji looks down at your frazzled expression with a grin, teeth showing as he cups your jaw a second time and slides his cock back in one go. This time, he pushes his cock in the base - keeping your throat around him with a hand on the back of your head.

"Just focus on me for now, baby. Focus on sucking me off, yeah? Just like that, easy easy. He's gonna open you up. Stretch you nice and make your pussy all sloppy. That's what you want right?"

Getou leans over you, the weight of his body looming as you feel slender fingers slide through your sticky folds. His middle and index brush against your abused clit, rubbing a few circles into it before pulling away. He grabs your arms and positions them behind your back, gripping them in one hand to keep you restrained. You squirm against the gesture, unable to get any leeway as he holds you down. Then you feel his fingers move, middle finger catching on your wet hole as it trembles and sticks. He opens you up like this without any warning.

His middle finger goes first - delicately intrusive as your pussy widens to accommodate him. They're so much bigger than yours. Just one feels like two of your own. You push back out of instinct but Getou doesn't let you move. He buries himself, pushing in and out until he's able to fuck your pussy all the way down to the knuckle. Once there's no longer any resistance, he pulls back and makes room for another. The sensation is duller, lets you clear your head and think even as Toji rubs his cock on your face and fucks your mouth in short ruts.

Not enough to make you choke, but enough to smear something hot and nasty all over you.

Professor Getou repeats the process with his pointer, pushing and stretching and opening until you can't fight it anymore. With two fingers, he scissors them trying to make your insides soft enough for him to take you.

"You're stretching out for me like it's nothing. You must be turned on, hm? Like getting all your holes used like this? Getting your face-fucked by a man old enough to be your father?"

Toji laughs harshly, smacking your face lightly, enough it doesn't hurt but enough to make you feel it.

"She loves it. She's clenching down on you tight ain't she?"

"Sure is. All this for a grade. Maybe I should've bullied you about it a little more first. Since you're so eager."

"Gonna give her extra credit for this?"

"I should deduct points for the fact you're even near here."

He laughs good-naturedly at this point, and you're still having trouble making sense of their relationship. You manage to speak for the first time in forever, voice barely there as you go to question them. You're not expecting any solid answers.

"How do you two know each other?" You ask, before Toji starts fucking your mouth again

"Goes a long way back. And we're still on bad terms, so congrats on bringing us together, sweetheart. Kind of an expected reunion really."

"He's been working here since Professor Gojo and I were students here and we knew him from before. A long story. Don't worry your pretty little head about it."

The burning question is quick to fade out of your mind as you feel your professor's clothed bulge rest against your cunt. You moan, a clipped needy sound as you nearly beg him to fuck you. Toji bends over you this time, reaching back to spread your pussy open by grabbing your ass. You can feel the grip of his hands, strong and assured.

"She's gettin' impatient. Give it to her."

"Don't need your help with that." Getou spits, irritation sounding in his words.

"Consider it an apology."

The air of tension is there temporarily, before Getou pulls his cock from the confines of his boxers. You can't see it, eyes squeezed tight as you work your mouth and tongue Toji's length. You can feel it though. He makes a show of rubbing his cock against your puffy, sore cunt. You get a feel for its shape as he pushes it between your thighs and lets it cling in between your lips. Professor Getou's cock is longer and more narrow, but it curves upright. It's hard, throbbing between your legs. Whining helplessly you wiggle your ass again. You feel increasingly restless about needing something inside of you. You're still bound though, completely and utterly unable to move. Toji's hand comes down heavy on your ass as you do, clicking his teeth in faux irritation.

"Don't fucking move unless you want my handmark on your ass forever," He says, his voice cool and forgiving "Impatient."

Getou must feel something inside of him merciful enough to keep you waiting. Even with all the stretching and prep, the minute you feel the head of your cock push through - something inside of you snaps. It's still so big, still too much, still reaches a part of you so deep you didn't know it was there. The position itself - still being on your stomach, makes it reach so much farther than other positions. The raw, skin-to-skin contact leaves your tummy fluttering, skin prickling with heat. Your top is pushed up enough to expose your lower back and your skin is pulsing. You feel like your whole body is on fire, suspended between men so much older than that want nothing more than to fuck you.

Every time you try to wiggle away from the sensations, Toji's hand comes down heavy on your backside. It doesn't matter how minuscule the movement. If he gets the idea that you're going to try and pull away, he spanks you hard enough that the room echoes with the sound. Your skin tingles, phantom sensation left before as you're held open and made to take your professor's cock - obedient and wanting.

Inch by miserable inch, it takes forever to take him down to the base. Your toes curl, eyes shut and mouth sloppily trying to keep up with the cock in your mouth and just barely succeeding.

He groans behind you, shuddering

"That's incredible," He praises, and it feels so good to hear him saying something so overtly kind you don't know if you want to laugh or cry "Your pussy is fucking incredible. Shit."

"You hear that? You gotta. Pussy's twitchin' like crazy. Ass is too, how cute."

"Feels sho good," You slur, brain clear of any and all rational thought as a string of saliva drips down your chin "Please fuck me, please,"

"You heard her teach."

Toji lets go of you and returns back to where you are. He pulls his cock away from you, instead holding you up and cupping your mouth open. He kisses you, after everything - with all of his pre-spend in your mouth before spitting into it harshly and kissing it again.

"Such a pretty face you're makin' right now." He says, something of a warm and unprecedented affection to it "So excited to get your pussy filled up."

He leans you on him, lets you wrap around his midriff, and squeeze tight while he pets the back of your hair in a strange streak of affection. You don't know what to make of anything. All you can feel is the long cock pounding into you without any mercy. Razor-sharp thrusts, nudging against your swollen g-spot and pounding into your cunt with immeasurable force. A man so much older than you is fucking you, pounding your pretty little pussy, and turning you into a complete mess. He's meant to be a mentor to you, but he has his cock imprinting itself inside of you over and over and over.

Your stomach feels hot again, but some other feeling takes you over as Toji cradles you - watching you just as intently. He talks you through with confidence you can't entirely understand.

"Yeah, that's it. Tighten up for him, just like that. Feels good doesn't it? I know baby, I know."

You whine out in Toji's arms as he talks you through it. Behind you, you feel Getou's grip hold you tight as he pistons you. The sound of his thighs smacking against your ass is noisy, almost as noisy as your pussy. Slick wet, sounding each time he thrusts.

"I'm not gonna last like this, shit." He pumps into you a few more types before his hips stutter to a halt. He cums with his cock buried deep inside of you, filling you all the way to the brim. You feel his white, hot seed fill your belly, cock twitching as he unloads and makes your legs shake.

A sense of emptiness overwhelms you as Getou pulls out, landing a hit on your ass as he shakes. He kisses your spine.

The two of them switch places without communicating with each other about it. Getou pulls out, and away - coming back in front of you and picking you up in his arms as Toji positions himself behind you. He spreads your cunt out with his fingers, examining the seed left over with a light laugh.

"Gonna fuck into your sloppy little cunt, give you another load where you need it and make you cum." Toji says, not hesitating at all. You feel your breathing start to quicken as he takes the same positions as before.

Toji doesn't neglect touching you as his arm curls around your waist, calloused fingertips brushing against your clit before his cock pushes into you. Your pussy takes him much easier, but even so - Toji is just so thick, you can't help but feel him all over again. This time, Getou has you in his arms, holding and guiding you. Your hands are curled around his bicep and lower spine as you're held up.

Toji's thrusts are slower, but just as rhythmic - focused on bringing you to another orgasm. It's duller this time, the sensation more focused and spread. Toji is so big you feel it in your hips, your entire lower half tingling as he pumps his cock in and out of you. He gives you all of his attention, staving off his own orgasm as Getou encourages you with his own words.

"Gonna cum again, pretty? Take another man's cum in you right after me? You want to, right? Take it all in, every drop. You've earned it."

You feel your insides tighten again, for a second time - in a miraculous span. Every muscle in your body tenses and contracts as both sensations work in tandem to bring you closer to your edge.

Your nerves fire off a second time as you push yourself to the limit. Toji fucks you through another orgasm with ease, thrusting with each tremor until you've ridden out your high. His own orgasm and chase come not long after that fact.

As soon as you've gone totally limp underneath him, he sheaths himself as deep as he can. Bent over you, he cums hard and deep, filling you to the brim a second time.

There's a brief moment of silence as Toji rides out his high, where all three of you sit in silence.

You find yourself limp as you lay there, Toji pulling out and Getou slowly letting you down before you look up with a tired expression.

"...So, did I pass?"

Your professor laughs harder than you've ever seen him laugh.

"With flying colors."

#toji x reader #getou x reader #toji smut #getou smut #writing tag #jjk x reader #dubcon cw #age gaps cw #blackmail cw #coercion cw #lmk if i missed anything

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subway-tolkien · 7 months

Text

Okay, this is 1600 words of (positive!) meta regarding the OFMD finale. Included is character analysis and a treatise on why a certain trope people keep throwing around does not apply here.

This is of course just my take, and I'm sure people will disagree, but I needed to get this out. Apologies if it comes off disjointed, I've had like no sleep.

Spoilers within, obviously. You have been warned. Heed the tags. I didn't tag any characters because I consider it a spoiler, but you know who this is about.

Listen. Listen.

Let me start off by saying I have been where you are. I’ve had beloved characters die, either because it was important to the narrative or for shock value. I’ve been there, so I’m not coming at this without empathy. I’m not an Izzy hater. I loved him as a character. I��m truly sad to see him go.

But from what I’m seeing around Twitter and tumblr, some of you do not understand the role of an antagonist in a story.

Izzy was always meant to die. The moment he said, in the first season, “the only retirement we get is death,” I knew he was meant to die in the end. The foreshadowing ran through both seasons. Izzy was the true antagonist of S1. He was there to keep Blackbeard tethered when he started pulling away, and yet he also set the plot in motion. He inadvertently introduced Blackbeard to the person who let him be just Ed. He put Ed on his own path to redemption without even knowing it.

S1 ended with Izzy getting what he wanted as Ed lost everything he had. S2 was about Izzy coming to terms with the fact that he’d gone too far, he’d turned Ed into a monster. It wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted Blackbeard back, just like old times. Instead, he got the Kraken, and it was more than he bargained for.

Especially after it cost him his leg and he realized how far gone Ed really was. The conversation that ended with Izzy’s half-assed suicide attempt was the final blow to Izzy—Ed really didn’t seem to care anymore. Where Izzy wanted him to stop giving a shit about his silly boyfriend, he instead got a Blackbeard who didn’t care about anything, and he was apparently now included in that category.

(I said half-assed suicide attempt because Izzy wasn’t meant to die then, THAT would have been an empty, pointless death. It wouldn’t have taught Ed anything—in fact, all it did was make him more self-destructive, which was Izzy’s purpose to the narrative, but not his endgame. That Ed thought Izzy killed himself pushed Ed to the brink. Ed wanted to die and take every scrap of Blackbeard with him. Had Izzy successfully killed himself, Ed and the Revenge would be at the bottom of the ocean.

It wasn’t until the crew left Izzy the unicorn leg that he realized the power of compassion, the incredible act of grace from a crew that suffered so much from Izzy’s own machinations and didn't need to forgive him. It moved him to tears, and it moved him to accept that maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to let people in, to let himself be cared for. It was a foreign concept and something Izzy likely hadn’t experienced since losing his family (I fully expect a shit ton of fanfic of Izzy’s life before piracy).

Israel Hands found the capacity to let love all the way in and by god, did he pursue it.

But, again, Izzy was always meant to die, and I’m glad they stuck to the narrative they set out with instead of placating fandom and letting our influence dictate how they told this story That’s never good, trust me. Fandom should not influence a creator’s decisions regarding their own characters. It rarely if ever ends well.

[Stares in Voltron S8]

And I see a lot of people out here throwing the “bury your gays” phrase around—I beg you, please look up the definition of the trope. Izzy didn’t die because he was queer, he didn’t die because of his disability. He wasn’t one half of the only queer couple in the show fridged for shock value. He wasn’t killed off due to pressure from conservative viewers. He wasn’t the only queer, disabled character.

They didn’t kill off Lucius, or Jackie, or Wee John. Would you be as outraged if it was any of them?

Killing Eve is bury your gays. Supernatural is bury your gays. Pretty much any film, book, TV show, whatever, where a queer character dies because they’re queer, of AIDs, to further the narrative for a straight person, etc—that is burying your gays.

Izzy’s death was none of those things. Izzy’s death had meaning.

Izzy’s death freed Ed from the Blackbeard persona. It finally forced Izzy to say the things he couldn’t say until he realized it was his last chance. Izzy was also tired. I honestly think he stuck it out for Ed’s sake, because he was afraid to let Blackbeard go without making sure Ed would be ok.

He loved the idea of Blackbeard, but over time, he learned to love Ed. He finally understood what Ed tried to tell him the whole time.

“Fuck off, you twat. You’re surrounded by family.”

You’re safe. You’re loved. You don’t need me anymore. You don’t need to be reminded of who you’re capable of being, you need the people who will guide you to who you will become, and I’m not one of them.

I know a lot of Izzy fans are stung by his death, some of you are deeply upset. I get that. Like I said, I’ve been there. Sirius’s death made me throw that fucking book across the room. That Fucking Woman™ killed off my entire OTP, purely for shock value and, imho, a direct response to shippers. Trust me, I have felt betrayed by a creator for their decisions.

But I need you to understand that no, this was not a personal attack, this was not malicious, this was not “bury your gays." A show that celebrates queerness and diversity is not suddenly homophobic and ableist because your favorite character died and happened to be both of those things. But when the majority of your cast of characters is different in some way, and they’re in a show about 18th century pirates, you have to accept that one of them could, in fact, die. “Anyone Can Die” is also a trope and the more accurate one to describe E8.

If only being queer and disabled made you invincible.

Spoiler alert: it doesn’t.

And no, I’m not an Izzy hater. I loved him, I loved him as an antagonist, and I loved his redemption arc. He was fascinating and Con put his whole O’Nussy into that part. I’m sorry to see him go, but as a mystery writer who often has to kill off beloved characters, I understand that he served the purpose he had from the beginning.

I swear, if some of you had your way, there’d be no conflict at all in any form of media. This what a steady diet of nothing but fanfic gets you. This is not a fluffy one-shot with magical healing dick and a happy ending where everyone sails off into the sunset. If that’s what you wanted, what you headcanoned, you did this to yourself. It’s not David et al’s fault that we took that character and babygirled him. That’s the risk we take when we decide to love a specific character, when we take a genuinely terrible person (in S1) and woobify him.

So, please stop harassing and attacking David, Alex, et al. David did not and should not change his story to placate us. The fact he went ahead with it despite the backlash I’m sure he expected makes me respect him as a creator even more.

Anyway, I’m going to revel that we have three (!) queer relationships with happy endings where one or both didn’t immediately die (again, the actual definition of “bury your gays”) and that we got at least two seasons of a little show that celebrated individualism, diversity, queerness, compassion, and love.

In the end, it all came down to love.

“There he is.”

Goodbye, Blackbeard.

Hello, Ed.

#ofmd spoilers #ofmd season two spoilers #ofmd finale spoilers #ofmd finale #Meta #ofmd s2 spoilers #our flag means death

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phantommarigold · 1 year

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gritting my teeth Kristoph Gavin has so much unexplored potential and at the same time it's great! Because it leaves a mystery and a lot of room for thought and analysis. If the franchise ended at AJ:AA/aa4 his narrative would really be perfect. But then AA:DD/aa5 and AA:SoJ/aa6 came out and he never gets metioned again. Like he never existed, like the impact he made on everyone from phoenix through apollo and klavier and even trucy! And it just makes it kind of shallow. He went to jail and we forgot about him?

Like sure Apollo turned on Kristoph with almost no hesitation- but that's because Apollo will do anything to uncover the truth, that's just Who He Is. That doesn't deny the fact that Kristoph was a respected and successful attorney who probably was good teacher and mentor for Apollo, and I ask, where's the inner conflict? And if not that, an explanation on why it's not there?

What about Phoenix who had a strange friendship with suspicion and distrust ingrained at the core of it with Kristoph? That was whole seven years they were playing a game with each other and hell, neither of them planned on ending it during turnabout trump! Phoenix asking Kristoph to defend him wasn't some trick or mindgame, and Kristoph's initial plan wasn't to get Phoenix convicted! He wanted to indict Orly and walk away with it.

And don't get me started on Klavier. We all saw how he acted during turnabout succession and then it's. Never mentioned again. Klavier is kind of like Apollo, he wants to seek the truth no matter how unpleasant it may be, but Apollo barely hesitated. Klavier was clearly trying to not believe it for a long time. For seven years actually. But after AJ:AA? Not a single line spared for him.

And one thing I'll give to Dual Destinies is the parallels between Apollo and Kristoph during the whole plot surrounding Clay Terran:

This? This is great. Ace Attorney always did a great job portraying similarities between characters through the sprites/body language.

And ynnow it's just, a real fucking shame because of course Kristoph Gavin isn't a morally good character, but he's a damn well written one! But it seems people writing games past AJ:AA didn't care about him.

(....okay so I just want to say I am writing this at 3am and it's kind of hard to find resources on the wiki cuz the internet is shittt at this hour and my brain is only half working so. I might've missed a lot of stuff that actually referenced Kristoph and I might just not remember. If anything I said here was wrong please feel free to correct me in the tags or add onto the post, thanks.)

#ace attorney #kristoph gavin #apollo justice #phoenix wright #klavier gavin

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niaranda · 29 days

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TavTash Tag Game made by @crystal-overdrive and inspired by @bearhugsandshrugs

I got tagged by @avani-telvanni and @yhmwatfhu I hope you will find it interesting!

I will accompany the article with my drawings, the full image of which you can find on my blog. 1. Tell us a bit about your Tav! Niaranda – chaotic neutral forest half-elf, rogue ranger. She is convinced not to use illithid abilities from the word. A self-willed adventurer. A girl with a very pragmatic mindset, likes to make cause-and-effect relationships and find logical explanations for something, is quite perceptive. In words, she is straightforward, honest and outspoken. Instead of lying outright (she hates lying), she will start to conceal and evade the answer. She likes to discuss various topics, often topics with deep meaning. This helps her to be filled with her new knowledge.

She lives for her own pleasure, an individualist. She is diligent, and easily does work with something small. She help those in need, if it does not bother her and does not contradict for plans. She is often motivated. There is always a choice, it is impossible to stay away as an observer. Niaranda is stubborn in her decisions and does not tolerate the indecision of others. She is not afraid to challenge. In rational thinking, fear is an interfering factors that prevent analysis. But she's not fearless. She still has that feeling, even though she's trying to control it.

2. What alignment is your Tav? How does that align or clash with Gortash? Do they agree with him morally? Niaranda is of the opinion that tyranny will always exist. The overthrow of one tyrant does not mean the arrival of another tyrant. There is no ideal world in which it would always be safe. But it is quite possible to stand on the strong side. In this case, Gortash turned out to be a strong point, and not the squad with whom she traveled.

Niaranda can tell Gortash that his plan is bullshit if she really thinks so, and she will believe it until he provides her with weighty arguments in opposition. It may happen that at some point she will resist the actions of the Chosen Bane's, and a conflict may arise against this background. However, Gortash is one of those who can control her.

3. What God does your Tav follow? Is Gortash's position as Bane's chosen an issue? Niaranda does not believe in any god directly. Faith often puts in certain frames, but a girl does not like to put herself in any kind of framework until she finds them useful for herself. Nevertheless, she observed the clergy and the dogmas of various gods a lot. Everyone has some kind of foothold that she can rely on in case of something. But Lathander turned out to be the most interesting in his desire to forget the defeats of the past and focus on the victories of the future. This also includes meeting problems face to face and rebirth as a metaphor. A new path, a fire that gives strength.

She does not consider the path of the Bainite, it is enough for her to be near them. Niaranda will always have time to swear allegiance to any of the gods. Rather, it is a matter of principle to remain with faith in oneself, to seek support within oneself. Of course, the power that the gods can give is a weighty argument to believe, but it also has consequences.

Niaranda finds it very curious that in places Enver is symbolized with the sun (for example, posters "Gortash to the Archdukes!" or the oath of union at the inauguration mentioning the roaring sun, symbols of the sun on Steel Watchers, and so on), but at the same time he is Bane's Chosen One. Without a direct belief in Lathander, Niaranda jokingly compares herself to a small ray of sunlight in pitch darkness. Two opposites. Sometimes it seems to her that there is a small ray of sunshine in the Gortash itself.

4. What did your Tav think of Gortash when they first met? Did they take his offer of an alliance? Throughout her journey, Niaranda had heard enough about Gortash and his atrocities. However, she did not expect him to offer her an alliance. She agreed rather forcibly, as his Steel Guards looked menacing and terrifying. At the same time, Niaranda admired how well Enver had built his power.

The clever insidious eyes, shaggy hairstyle and unflappable V-neck on the chest, which impressed the girl at the inauguration, were just the beginning of the girl looking at some things with a new look.

Later, she did not regret the alliance agreement, even when her companions wanted to thwart Gortash's plans, Niaranda convinced them not to do so. It seemed to her that she was playing a double game, not telling the squad anything about her decisions.

5. How did Gortash and your Tav get together? What do they see in each other?

The Illithid Colony What Niaranda sees: "A suspicious dangerous guy playing with his allies, he's clearly up to something bad, we need to stop him." Meeting at the inauguration What Niaranda sees: BREASTS "He is polite and courteous, but at the same time he looks so insidious and confident. He is an Archduke, although he achieved this dishonestly, a strong and prudent, natural leader. Damn it, he's good! I'll go after him." What Gortash sees: "She is quite stubborn and reasonable, she can turn out to be a strong ally. How far is she willing to go? I'll check it out." They both see that they need each other to cover the needs of their plans as well as their inner needs. And they can give it to each other.

6. What does the future hold for your Tav and Gortash? Are they in a relationship, a one time thing, are they going to rule the sword coast together or kill each other in a tragic showdown?

Situation #1: Tragic defeat. Gortash dies from a psionic shot to the head, Niaranda continues his work, but soon the same fate awaits her (yes, I know that the screenshot shows the scene with the transformation into an illithid, but just imagine that these black areas near the eyes are the result of the identical death of Gortash.).

Situation #2: The power of the Archduke. Niaranda has difficulty persuading the Emperor to ensure Gortash's survival at the brain. Gortash and the Emperor (a forced unwanted alliance), along with Niaranda and her squad, defeat the brain. Gortash kills the Emperor and takes the stones for himself, and Niaranda betrays her squad, becoming the right hand in ruling with Enver. He does not subordinate her, he will always have time to do this if his leash of influence on the girl suddenly breaks. Soon he realizes that the larva is useless without abilities, and removes it, making sure that the girl is faithful to him and their common cause. (THIS should be the canonical ending of Gortash, I think)

Situation #3: Revenge. Gortash is dying at the brain. Niaranda blames Bane for not helping Gortash in any way at the right moment. Six months have passed since the victory over the brain. Gale comes to the camp meeting in the form of the god of ambition and offers his beloved to become the goddess of any free domain (at the time of the plot of bg3, he does not know anything about her affair with Gortash). Niaranda chooses the domain of revenge, retribution, justice and becomes not a god equal to Gale, or Mystra, or Bane, but a demigod (at the time of writing the story, I learned that in stories, unfortunately, there already exists such a demigod named Hoar). Niaranda travels through Faerun, undermining Bane's churches, thereby weakening his power, in order to later visit Bane's outer plane, free Gortash from eternal torment. The girl returns all his equipment to Gortash and together they defeat Bane. Lord Enver Gortash becomes the new god of tyranny and discord. The oath made by the two of them at the inauguration is finally being fulfilled.

(it all looks so epic in my head, but I tried to briefly describe it)

Thank you for your attention, it was interesting for me to describe it!

#gortash #tavtash #gortav #gortash x tav #tag game #tavtash tag game #bg3 screenshots #bg3 #enver gortash #bg3 spoilers

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glorious-spoon · 1 year

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Second-Guessing [9-1-1 | Buck/Eddie | 1/1]

Rating: Teen Wordcount: ~1000 Warnings: None Other Tags: Pre-relationship, Emotional hurt/comfort, Friendship, Episode tag - 6x13 Mixed Feelings

“Do you think I’m bad at sex?”

Eddie barks out a startled laugh at his ceiling, then straightens up. This is not, unfortunately, the weirdest way Buck has ever opened a phone call with him, but it’s definitely up there. “What?”

“That call the other day, you know, the lady with the vibrator—”

“Jesus Christ.”

“Eddie,” Buck whines. “This is important!”

“Is it, really?”

“Eighty percent. He said that the article said eighty percent of people report being unsatisfied. Do you know how many women I’ve slept with? Eighty percent of that is, like, a lot. Okay? And I was doing some research—on a first time hookup, did you know that only forty percent of women even have an orgasm at all? So if I do the math on that—”

“Buck.”

Buck lets out a deep sigh that crackles down the phone line. “I’m being an idiot about this, aren’t I?”

“Nah. Well, I mean, kinda. But it’s okay.”

“Is it, though? Like—” there’s a rustle on the other end of the line. It’s easy to imagine Buck right now, flopped out across his bed because the couch his parents bought him is a bona fide torture device. In his sweatpants, probably, his hair still damp from the shower. He lets out another sigh, then says, “You know, Bobby was saying—when I was with Taylor, Bobby said that the problem was that I never talk to my partners, that I don’t know how to communicate, and that’s why my relationships always turn into catastrophes.”

“I don’t think that’s quite what he was saying. And Taylor—”

“I know. You hate her guts.”

Eddie snorts. “I was gonna say that it’s different, in a long term relationship.”

“Right, but. I haven’t historically had a lot of success with those.”

“Relationships don’t work out sometimes. A lot of the time.”

There’s silence for a moment. It’s not just Taylor hanging over the conversation now; Ana is there too. And Shannon.

Sex with Ana was always stilted, awkward in a way that he told himself at the time was just the newness of it all. Just a new person, a new body to learn, just Eddie being rusty when it came to literally any form of physical intimacy. He and Shannon were each other's firsts, so of course neither of them knew what they were doing to start with, and what they learned they learned together. By the end of it, sex was the only part of their relationship that actually worked. Beyond that—

He doesn’t really have a lot of perspective to offer Buck, is the thing. Even setting aside the fact that he’s not sure he can give an objective analysis of the sexual history of the guy he’s in love with.

So there’s that.

“It’s just…” Buck sounds quieter now, almost miserable, and it tugs at Eddie's heartstrings despite the absurdity of this whole conversation. “That was like. The one thing I knew I was good at. You know? Everything else, sure, my life was a mess, I made a lot of dumb choices and messed up a lot of relationships and got myself fired, and—but at least I knew how to, you know, make somebody feel good. Except maybe I didn’t after all. And if I wasn’t even any good at that, then—”

“Buck,” Eddie interrupts again. Gently, this time. He firmly squashes the unhelpful little voice in the back of his head that wants to ask for a hands-on demonstration. Buck sounds freaked out enough that he might actually take Eddie up on it, and Eddie is… really not ready to cope with that possibility. “You’re spiraling.”

Another silence. Then: “I called them. Some of them.”

Good grief. “Your hookups?”

“Yeah—is that a disrespectful way to talk about them? I mean—anyway, yeah. The ones I still have phone numbers for, I called them. Most of them didn’t want to talk to me.”

“Shocking,” Eddie deadpans.

Buck laughs, which is what he was going for. “Shut up.”

“So? What was the verdict?”

He regrets asking the moment the words are out of his mouth, but he doesn't take it back.

“Uh,” Buck says, still laughing a little. “Of the ones I actually got a hold of? Yes, yes, probably, no, who the hell are you, I thought I blocked your number, yes, no, I don't remember, yes.”

“More yeses than nos,” Eddie offers.

“Unless they were lying to make me feel better,” Buck counters triumphantly.

“Buck. If someone called you up out of the blue after years of radio silence to ask if you had an orgasm when you slept together, would you lie about it to spare their feelings?”

Buck is quiet for a minute. “Yeah, okay, that was kind of an insane thing to do, huh.”

“A little. Yeah.”

He can hear the fondness in his own voice and is helpless to mute it. Though he's honestly not really trying that hard. Buck deserves to know that he's loved, even when he's being ridiculous. Maybe especially then.

“I just worry. You know, that all the shit I thought I knew about myself—that maybe it’s not really true after all. And if that’s the case then who the hell am I, anyway?”

“Feels like this maybe isn’t actually about whether or not you’re good in bed,” Eddie offers, and bites his teeth on anything else he could say about that. About finding out that maybe the person you thought you were was just a carefully painted mask over the messy, tender reality underneath. He could offer Buck some truth of his own, but he doesn’t. It doesn’t feel like the right time for it.

That, or he’s a coward. He’s working on it, though.

“Maybe not. I guess. Eddie, I…” Buck trails off.

“What?” Eddie asks, when a few moments of silence have passed.

“Nothing,” Buck says. He laughs quietly; Eddie can conjure up the shape of his smile and the crinkles at the corners of his eyes as easily as breathing. “Just. Thanks for taking my call.”

“Of course. Always.”

For a little while, they just breathe together across the miles between them as night falls gently over Los Angeles. Then Buck says softly, “Come over tomorrow?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says back, just as soft. There’s nothing new about the invitation, but it feels new, somehow, anyway. Either way, the answer is the same as it’s always been. “Yeah, okay.”

#911 fic #buddie #buddie fic #evan buckley #eddie diaz #my fic

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infizero-draws · 10 months

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girl what do you feel about kris' and noelle's relationship in snowgrave i want to know

OK OK. first of all thank you for specifying "in snowgrave" because if you just said their relationship in general i would literally never stop talking.

second tho, im really bad at putting how i feel about character dynamics into words because often there's just soooooo much to be said and different ways of looking at it and i get overwhelmed if i try to make some all-encompassing analysis. so let it be known that whatever i say here is not the full picture and there's so much more i could say.

putting this under the cut because i already know im gonna talk for way too long:

that being said oughghghhgh. where to fucking begin. i'd say the most fascinating (and disturbing) thing about their relationship in snowgrave is the weird romantic undertones. the fact that you have to pressure noelle into the idea of riding the ferris wheel with KRIS instead of with susie, her actual crush.

one of the most overt symbols of this weirdness is definitely the thorn ring. i know it isnt the only ring you give to noelle to equip, but this is the one that's mandatory for the snowgrave route. in order to do the route, you have to make KRIS give NOELLE a RING. a ring that literally HURTS HER TO WEAR. if that isnt a metaphor for a forced relationship i dont know what is

however perhaps the most damning and obvious one is of course this option:

i would say something about this myself but @/sorrybutiforgothowtomakecontent's tags on another one of my posts really summed it up:

im also aromantic so this really resonated with me. but yeah just going back to the first point they make. you literally HAVE to say "we're something else" in order to do the snowgrave route, which seems to make it pretty clear that this kinda subtext was intended. snowgrave can only exist with kris and noelle being "something else" because that's literally what snowgrave IS.

my favorite way to view snowgrave is through the lens of an arranged/forced marriage. again, the ring. it just feels so gross, especially because it's not just a regular marriage but an abusive marriage. snowgrave is abuser simulator (2021). im sure i dont need to explain that part

but the thing is, SNOWGRAVE IS NOT JUST ABOUT NOELLE and that's what makes it SO BAD. not only is noelle being forced to go through all of this, but KRIS is being forced to be the one who does it to her! kris clearly is EXTREMELY upset about snowgrave judging from the constant opportunities to choose more "normal" dialogue and abort the route, and from afterwards when they meet back up with ralsei and susie:

kris, under no circumstances, wants to do ANY of this. but they literally do not have a choice. snowgrave isnt kris manipulating noelle, it is US forcing kris into manipulating noelle. no one is winning here. they're both traumatized, and kris physically cannot even talk to their friends about it or show the true extent of their hurt. it SUCKSSSSS

and when you consider the idea that kris and noelle's friendship may have become strained specifically due to dess' disappearance, and kris possibly having something to do with that with the bunker and whatnot..... well now you're just forcing kris to hurt their friend AGAIN, when in the normal route this could've been their chance to finally reconnect. ahghrhgrhghh

going back to the marriage stuff, it's just so uncomfortable to see these two forced together like this. noelle is in love with susie. we dont know kris well enough to know if they have a crush on anyone (or if they get those kinds of feelings at all), but that doesn't matter. the fact is these two are likely not romantically interested in each other at all, and they are being forced together BY THE PLAYER. and it's horrific. (and even if one or both of them felt that way, this is still entirely wrong. they do not get a choice here)

@/hellspawnmotel's tags on this comic of hers will always haunt me, bcuz like. yeah. this is it:

there's also the fact that kris is naturally kind of a goofball; they're a prankster, especially it seems when it comes to noelle, as can be seen with the stepping off the button thing or the many, many examples from their shared childhood brought up by noelle.

but in the snowgrave route, kris drops this entirely. all of the alternate dialogue options to abort the route, which are very likely FROM kris, are very genuine and apologetic. kris is scared they're going to lose their friendship with noelle completely because of what you're making them do, and it's like they panic and all of their usual goofiness and sass is just dropped for genuine emotion. it's really sad to see honestly, esp in a full snowgrave route where you know that their efforts will be in vain.

OH OH ALSO. can't believe i haven't mentioned this yet. the fact that NOELLE KNOWS SOMETHING IS GOING ON WITH KRIS. THAT'S one of the things that really makes me insane.

noelle goes through ALL THAT, seemingly AT THE HANDS OF HER FRIEND....... and yet. she knows that something is wrong. she KNOWS kris, and she knows that they don't act like this. you'd think she would instantly cast kris off, it would be the right thing to do, but she doesn't. because she knows that something is off.

i cannot stress enough the fact that noelle is the ONLY one who seems to have noticed just how strange kris has been acting. sure other characters comment on kris seeming off or doing something they usually wouldn't do, but it is NOELLE and NOELLE ALONE who takes such notice of it and decides to actually DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

"i have to figure it out" is a mission statement, it implies that noelle (at least in the snowgrave route), is going to actively try to figure out what's going on with kris, WHICH IS CRAZYY and i feel like not enough people are talking about. not even kris's own mother has fully realized something's wrong. like she says, noelle seems to be the only one who's noticed just how off kris has been acting, and the only one who might try to understand and help them. genuinely makes me insane thinking of where that might go in this route oaugurhghh

im gonna stop here because im exhausting myself but. in conclusion I LOVE CHILDHOOD FRIENDS GONE WRONG!!!!!!!!! FAVORITE TROPE EVER!!!!!!!!!!!! anyways read this comic (all 3 parts) and you'll get it

oh also "kris, why are you wearing my watch?" still makes me go fucking insane

#i genuinely could talk about these two forever. favorite dynamic in deltarune hands down #they're my favorite characters individually so the way that snowgrave intertwines their stories #noelle's strength and kris's possession #into this horrible thing of being forced to force someone else to kill and make them think THAT'S what true strength is. augurgrghhrgh #they genuinely make me insane. i need to see more of them NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW #not art #asks

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descendant-of-truth · 1 year

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Well guys I did say in one of my tags that the Prime!Shadow analysis would be for another time and that time is now because I'm mentally shaking him around like a ragdoll trying to figure out his secrets

What I want to highlight is just, the sheer number of ways he's been set up as the odd one out in the first third of the season alone, and why I find that so interesting. So let's break that down for a minute:

The first thing we learn about him is that he's not Sonic's friend or enemy, but a secret third thing - his rival, as specified later

But despite having a clear label for it in episode 2, Sonic finds this particular dynamic "complicated." Shadow is the only person in his life that falls under that category, and it shows in how he describes him.

"He's a real buzzkill" (negative), "and he rollerskates!" (said with admiration). Sonic complains about Shadow and compliments him in the same breath, which is hilarious but also good for character building

In that same scene though, Shadow momentarily breaks into Sonic's narration to tell him that they're air shoes, not roller skates, which is ALSO funny but once again, he's the only character to do this. Even if it's for the sake of humor, Shadow is given a sort of... protagonist privilege, if you will. He's the only one to break the "Sonic POV," something he does not just this once, but multiple times over the course of a few episodes.

Now, there are other scenes that are from the perspectives of characters that aren't Sonic, but what makes Shadow's scenes different from theirs is that his are used specifically to show that Sonic can be an unreliable narrator.

The very first scene in the show after Sonic happily describes his status quo is the event with the Paradox Prism. A moment that Shadow was 100% there for, albeit towards the end, but who is conveniently left out until we return to the scene in later episodes.

And the framing is just. so deliberate on a rewatch that it hurts, because this is one of the very first shots we see of the show:

...and it takes place directly after Sonic knocks Shadow into a wall and runs away.

Literally the INSTANT Sonic takes his eyes off of Shadow is when the show's story begins, and it starts with Sonic narrating and completely glossing over Shadow's existence

(Is anyone else going insane over this. is it just me. does the implied mental gymnastics happening here make anyone else feel like they're vibrating)

Anyway as I was saying, removing Shadow from the scene with the Prism (even cutting out his voice when he shouts "Chaos Control") keeps us in Sonic's perspective just enough to share in his confusion when he starts to remember the incident more clearly.

(It also implies that he didn't consider Shadow to be important enough to take note of in the first moment we watch the scene, which. oof, sorry Shadow)

He's also missing in the scene where Sonic is first traveling through the void, despite showing up like two seconds after him - another instance where we're kept in Sonic's perspective just enough to miss the bigger picture that has Shadow in it.

Meanwhile, scenes from Shadow's point of view give us all sorts of information; the fact that Chaos Emeralds exist, more detailed effects of Sonic's speed-amplified explosion (it gave him a vision of some sort, which I'm convinced is implying something important about it beyond "it blew up part of a mountain"), how exactly he ended up in the void, why Sonic was late to the fight with Eggman, all that good stuff

It's a pretty consistent theme with Shadow, actually. He's always there to represent the bigger picture that Sonic isn't seeing.

...partly because Sonic keeps forgetting about him, in contrast to Shadow being the only other person to remember who Sonic is.

(I didn't know where else to fit this point in, but Shadow's lost in the void while Sonic is bouncing back and forth between worlds like it's a professional sport. Narrative foils and all that, we love to see it)

But there's another way that Shadow is made distinct from everyone else Sonic knows from the original world, that I think is going to have a big effect on his character development: Shadow doesn't care about sparing Sonic's feelings.

A lot of the conflict between Sonic and his friends is based on the fact that Sonic doesn't listen well, but another thing to consider is that his friends don't really... tell him when he's made a mistake, or what their point of view was, or what exactly he was doing wrong.

Tails? He could have explained that telling Sonic there was a trap was supposed to be a cue not to attack Eggman, and that he thought Sonic knew that, and so him attacking anyway felt like blatantly disregarding his warnings.

Instead, he brushes it off with an "it's fine."

Amy tries to explain that the palm tree gift has a lot of sentimental value to everyone, and yeah that whole situation went poorly, but it doesn't seem like she ever communicated to Sonic that him disregarding it hurt their feelings.

If he was just told that he messed up and explained how he did, you know he would have tried to make it up to them, like how earnestly he apologized to Tails. He could have been working on these problems a lot sooner, but because the others want to preserve their friendship with him and don't like getting into arguments, they don't communicate with him.

Shadow has no such hangups about their relationship. He tells Sonic exactly what his problem is.

...even if Sonic doesn't seem to hear him, and Shadow should really work on the whole "punching to get his attention" thing.

There's a lot of room for improvement here, but my point is that Sonic needs someone to be this upfront and honest with him. Straightforward communication is clearly what he understands the most - Thorn simply asking him (albeit rudely) what he knew about togetherness was all it took for him to really start thinking about that, though admittedly the circumstances around the question probably helped.

And because Shadow has been set up as the only person who still knows and remembers Sonic, the one who has a wider perspective on things than he does, and cares enough about him as a person to try to get through to him in the first place without being held back by a need to maintain a friendly stance with him... he's the perfect person to help accelerate Sonic's character arc.

And, y'know, hopefully Sonic can do the same for him - though it's hard to say what exactly Shadow needs help with (beyond Not Punching People) that Sonic could contribute to, given his little screen time so far.

Case in point: this show is setting up Shadow to be Important in a way that only Shadow can be and I for one am hyped to see it all play out

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic prime #sonic prime spoilers #shadow the hedgehog #analysis #meta #Also yes this is more 'Sonic is clearly neurodivergent' content #I'm not saying he's the only one but like. it's important #This was kind of all over the place but I think it still turned out coherent

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yesiknowimshort · 1 year

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looking at the fanon from canon with tim drake

(to the best of my own knowledge; take with a grain of salt; i’m open to discussion and disagreement; we can take this like an english lit class analysis)

this is inspired by discussions with @boredandboredmind about misconstrued info with jason and tim on their own posts about it.

also do not take this as hate to tim fic writers, you’re amazing and you best believe i’m checking the tim x reader tag constantly. i just want to be able to help give you easy access to half-canon-compliant info, and you can choose to take it or leave it.

and especially if you only know tim through online media (which is always valid and i’ll hear no argument!), it can be hard to differentiate between what it is “out of character, completely fanon” behaviour, and what is actually plausible.

RELATIONSHIPS

with his dad

tim’s relationship with his dad is extremely complicated. they both loved each other… but both of his parents had a very different way of showing their love to what tim needed.

for the majority of his life, his mother and father were super neglectful of him and his interests, which of course is how we had nine year old tim drake running around figuring out people’s identities and tryna convince nightwing to go back to batman bc tim said batman wouldn’t cope without a robin, as if he knew them personally.

bruce generally disapproved of tim being left alone while his parents were on business trips, so he looked out for tim a lot during those times.

after the death of tim’s mother, his father was all moody for a bit bc his company had gone to shit… oh and his wife died. anyway he was acting like mr crabs when he loses his money for a while until his physiotherapist dana winters was like “yo get a hold of your life man”. so jack attempted to reconnect with his son… but tim was already deep in the mantle of robin and hanging out with bruce wayne.

tim was a little reluctant at first but after a while he did really appreciate his dad trying to be a dad for once… but it conflicted with the life he had already made for himself.

tim was sneaking out to do hero work, skipping school, coming home in the early hours beat and bruised, being snarky and angsty to his dad, super secretive; basically coming off as a reckless hooligan teenager (even tho he really wasn’t) which made jack incredibly angry at tim a lot of the time, causing them to have a lot of fights.

jack was also super insecure as his position as tim’s dad as he felt inferior to the relationship tim had built with bruce.

so one day while tim was out, jack raided tim’s bedroom (10/10 parenting skills there, well done jack) which dana winters was horrified by and actually sided with tim when tim came home and blew up at his dad -anyway jack found out tim was robin.

he stormed to bruce and was like “fuck you and fuck my son’s role as robin. he’s going to boarding school”.

long story short, tim resumes the mantle of robin and his dad deals with it and they begin to really get along again, like a true father and son… and then his dad is murdered. tim finds him and is distraught, and that’s when we get this classic image of tim and bruce:

(it’s horrible obviously but i love this illustration so much. the way tim’s half in and out of the robin gear, the single eye you can see, the way he’s half collapsed over his father’s body and clinging to bruce for dear life) anyway then tim goes into the care of bruce wayne.

with bruce

lemme start of by saying: tim would only ever use the wayne name for business means as future ceo/controlling shareholder of W.E.

tim will always be a drake.

he quite literally made up a fake uncle so he wouldn’t get adopted by bruce, even though bruce really wanted to adopt him. not only that- he went as far as to forge a new will including this fictional uncle to avoid being bruce’s son

he struggled a lot with bruce’s “affection” after his father’s death since he never saw bruce as a father beforehand, only ever as a mentor. and of course, up until later in his robin career, he wasn’t even an orphan. he still technically wasn’t since dana winters ended up marrying his dad and becoming his step-mum, but she’s basically forgotten sadly.

he also consistently makes a point to make sure people know he made himself robin, and it wasn’t batman’s choice at all.

he appreciates bruce of course, but it’s more on an intellectual and emotional level than anything else. tim came from money (albeit, new money), and even though his parents' company basically died with his father there would’ve been some amount of inheritance money. not to mention without a shadow of a doubt, he would’ve had an account his parents had been saving for him.

living in another manor house and working around international companies and important people, wouldn’t be too different from what his life would’ve become had his parents not died.

tim would appreciate bruce not for the life he gave him, but simply because of bruce being intellectually stimulating for him. remember; tim sees the life he has as the life he made.

he reminds me of damian in the fact that both of them would struggle with dealing with people who bored them, people who couldn’t offer them anything.

anyway bruce = respected equal, bruce ≠ tim’s new dad.

with jason and damian

boom. all you need to know.

nah but seriously...

jason attacked tim in the tt tower when he came back to life but can you really blame him? he was replaced, and it made sense for him to come after tim since as we know, tim forced himself into the role and did, technically, steal jason’s spot before bruce realistically would’ve replaced him.

but they never held that grudge throughout jason’s reintegration into the family. of course they’d have sibling fights (note that tim doesn’t think of any of his adoptive brothers as real brothers; but jason is closest to), but a little roughhousing is normal. i’m the eldest of 6 brothers and believe me, we fight all the time. literally yesterday one of them and i bit each other while fighting (if you don’t think damian and tim would do that, you’re kidding yourself). but we love each other, and if anything happened we’d jump to each other's defence.

moving onto damian...

the way tim views damian is very telling of tim’s worldview and childhood. when damian arrived, tim demanded that regardless of being batman’s son or not, damian must work to earn the love and respect of bruce, “like everybody else” he had said. clear projection from tim here, since up until dami, tim was the only one who wasn’t “wanted” per se, and also tim’s had to work for people’s affection and attention his entire life. look at his parents; they were the half-arsed “that’s great honey” and then back to their phone call type of people (well we know where tim gets his steadfast work ethic from).

anyway, tim finally had the spotlight on him for a while only to have it turned for some little genetic abnormality.

tim’s suffering from the “been the only/youngest child for too long” phenomenon; they do not believe there is room enough in one's heart for more unconditional love. it’s quite sad if you think about it; he was in his mid-late teens by this point.

tim was quite patronising of damian when they were introduced, but he quickly pulled the “i’m just messing with you” card and did try to fix it, but stubborn-as-tim damian just started to preach his favourite “i’ll inherit everything without even trying” play. this obviously pissed off tim to no end. it seemed damian knew the perfect way to get under his skin, and it was putting tim even more on edge. it made him feel insecure in his place with bruce. for the first time tim didn’t think he was gonna be able to get his way easily.

eventually though, batman assures tim that damian being his biological son doesn’t change anything that he has with tim, and that tim doesn’t have to prove anything to him.

yes, if you look up tim and damian, you can see that damian has done some horrible things to tim and the two have very thin patience for each other, but that’s simply because they both understand the perfect ways to piss each other off. it’s just so easy for the both of them that they can’t help themselves.

i also will say that damian views the relationship as much more “mortal enemies” than tim does, but he is a child several years younger than tim, so it’s natural for him to view it as a bigger deal than tim.

all in all, jason and tim, and tim and damian are simply just brothers, and if you have more than two siblings, i’m sure you know as much as we deny it, everyone had a favourite and a least favourite sibling -it’s natural. for tim, his favourite is jason, and his least just happens to be damian.

just like damian’s favourite is dick, and least favourite happens to also be tim.

with stephanie

(now i don’t know as much about steph as i do for tim so feel free to correct me)

stephanie brown got into the hero scene by being the best little shit i’ve ever heard of and messing up her villain dad’s plans. her dad was cluemaster, a friend of the riddler, and she would literally just show up and spoil their plans in annoying ways (hence her name; spoiler).

she was tim drake’s girlfriend -it’s important to note that she wasn’t robin’s. she had no clue about his double life and broke up with him because she thought he was being unfaithful (fair enough).

when tim’s dad took robin away from him, steph stepped up to the plate with a made up robin costume and (like tim) demanded to be the replacement.

her 71 days in the spotlight as the first female robin ended in a couple different ways (thanks comics for making it hard). bruce dismissed her for his belief that she couldn’t follow orders, but he also didn’t believe that she could live up to tim... ouch. he didn’t even approve of her as his partner until she was killed. oh god here we go again...

i personally don’t acknowledge that she died. just- nope. i always look at it as wrong place, wrong time for steph. she could’ve been a great robin, but tim left massive fucking shoes to fill, and i reckon bruce was looking for any little reason to fire her -disobeying one order to not involve herself in a fight just happened to be the perfect opportunity (according to bruce). not to mention steph (and this isn’t necessarily a wrong thing) was undisciplined in hero-ing.

not to say tim was straight-laced and serious, more that him being at an equal mental level to bruce, and the both of them having built strong trust in each other, gave him a lot more leeway to do what he wanted and have the means to back up his actions.

ORIGINS OF POPULAR FANON

obviously i’ll never know exactly where something came from. this is more my speculation and attempt and supplying the headcanons with canonical evidence or debunking them.

where does “tim is a sickly boi” come from?

his lack of a spleen.

i’m not sure if most people now know that’s the reason why, but that’s gotta be how it started.

without a spleen, our body's other organs like the liver can take over many of the spleen's functions. you'll still be able to cope with most infections but there's a heightened risk that a serious infection will develop quickly, especially from certain bacteria and parasites like malaria.

if he got on antibiotics and rested when he started to feel ill, he’d be fine, but tim would never remember to take antibiotics and gods forbid he let himself rest so... he’s working until his body forces him to take a break.

mimi approved fanon 👍

where does “tim doesn’t care for himself” come from?

he’s a stubborn person. people don’t emphasise this enough. usually, people just use the motivation of depression (which, fair, it could be included in it). however, he will literally do whatever the fuck he wants because he’s tim fucking drake and that's all the excuse he feels he needs. like he is prepared to sacrifice everything *cough cough* himself to see his plan go through.

he’s also stubborn in his need to prove himself as we know. as a self-appointed robin; his mantle had felt fragile to him. not to mention damian made his grand appearance to push tim into that sweet sweet middle child category.

and as we already know, his dad also forcefully took the mantle from him and stopped him from seeing bruce. every time things start to go well for tim... it all seems to go to shit.

this in turn led to the fanon of ‘chronic perfectionism to the point of halting self-care in order to complete x, y z to prove himself’.

he also canonically doesn’t care much for sleep; in teen titans when superboy finds him awake tim just goes “it’s only three, i’m checking my emails”.

mimi approved fanon 👍.

where does “tim’s a coffee addict” come from?

he actually is only ever depicted drinking/buying coffee like 3 times (i don’t know for sure, please correct me if it’s more/less).

it ties in well with the previous point; tim’s coffee addiction is a way to justify how he can still function when he’s on 5 minutes of sleep, battered and bruised and still able to kick arse and be intelligent.

mimi approved fanon 👍

where does “tim have abandonment issues” come from?

his mum dies and he loses how his dad used to be.

he gains a better version of his dad and then his dad acts like an arsehole.

his dad gets better again and then his dad dies.

he had steph and then she left him because he just couldn’t explain who he was.

he gets bruce and then damian shows up.

he gets bruce back and then bruce dies, and nobody believes him when he says he’s alive.

yeah... it makes sense.

would be mimi-approved fanon, but i’ve never like the way i’ve seen it portrayed in fanon.

i see a lot in fics he does the “i’m pushing you away first to protect us both” and i just don’t personally agree with the depiction. call me petty but that’s my thoughts.

where does the perception that tim’s the soft one come from?

no fucking clue honestly.

mans blinded deathstroke’s (/jericho, hard to explain) good eye on purpose while delivering a one liner about fighting blind, and then told the man he just fully blinded that he agreed with deathstroke that he (tim) could be vicious when he had to be.

that one-on-one moment in the teen titans comic is demonstration enough of tim being the opposite of the soft one. none of the robins are soft. if we’re going off who’s the most “sensitive”, then it’d be dick or damian -those two have the shortest fuse.

tim blinded someone by throwing his fucking birdarang at the guy’s one good eye and was sure enough and committed enough to what he planned to do that he had the precision to make sure not to take the eye out completely -only debilitate him. that’s some calculated callousness right there.

he also boasted to the teen titans about lying to batman, after he just lied to starfire about staying put in a fight (and his lie used that ‘goody two shoes’ perception of himself; he’s self-aware of how he can come off)… and then he broke his friends out of the tt tower by cutting glass in the shape of a bat. dudes cocky as.

not to mention he literally stalked batman and ran around solving murders and dropping off the evidence to gordon before even being a robin. he was on the CIA’s watch list for crying out loud.

tim is extremely underestimated. to the point where (as @forcesofnatureunleashed accurately described) this “uwu” version of tim has taken over the fandom and made him out to seem like a mega wimp and a quiet tortured soul.

i’m not dismissing the shit he’s actually gone through, i’m just saying he’s gone through enough that you don’t need to make up that he was berated by his dad, can’t talk about his pain, and relies on his tech, when he’s quiet literally the best martial artist in the family and highly respected by ra’s al ghul.

you don’t just get respected by ra’s al ghul; especially if you were an overly sensitive, shaky-knee-ed, spineless, weakling.

STRONGLY mimi disapproved fanon 👎

#respect for tim drake #tim drake #red robin #dc comics #batboys #batfamily #headcanon #dc headcanon #fanon #canon #tim drake x reader

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linkspooky · 1 year

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Hi! I saw your tags about Tara in Teen Titans comics--I'm only familiar with the cartoon series. How do your feelings about Tara compare in the show vs. the comics? I ask since I noticed you mentioned that Tara never really cared about BB, which I think is obviously changed in the show, and I wonder how you feel about that.

They're both good? They're both good! I think one thing people forget about comic book characters vs. adaptations of comic book characters, is that comic books were always intended to be a collaborative medium that builds on itself through the work of multiple authors and interpretations. Thus, you can have multiple versions of the same character who have the same core but don't really have to be exactly the same. This is why it is kind of silly when people get upset animated adaptations make changes from the original source material because that's kind of the point, in a collaborative medium, you're going to get another author's take on the same character.

Since you asked I can give you an analysis on the core ideas of Teen Cartoon Terra vs. Comics Terra, and also her relationship with Beast Boy in both versions.

1. GWEN STACY

So, I once talked about how Terra was always intended by her creators to die, but that's not necessarily offensive or fridging her character because Terra's still a character with a lot of narrative agency. Terra is the main character of her story, it's just her story happens to be a tragedy. That is true for both versions.

Before the start of the story her fate is sealed. This is what you call doomed by the narrative. George Wolfram and Glen Murakami have both given interviews explaining as such. Albeit, for different reasons.

Comics Terra was essentially made to deconstruct a lot of comic book tropes. I lovingly call her "Asshole Kitty Pryde." From conception she was going to be the spunky new kid with mutant powers who joined the titans at fifteen and immediately became friends with everyone... except she was evil all along.

George’s strength was he also understood the characters 100 percent as I did so there was never any question. He knew. We had talked enough about the characters to know we were exactly on the same page with them. So I said, “Everyone keeps complaining that we’re like the X-Men” and the X-Men had just gotten Kitty Pryde. I said, “Why don’t we really screw around with them completely?” — this is the fans — “…and make them think we’re stealing Kitty Pryde only she’s gonna be bad from Day One.”

Of course this is where authorial intent differs from like, what actually ended up happening in the story. Worlfram's intent was to always make Terra have no reason for her actions, the tragic backstory she feeds the teen titans is kind of embellished and made up, she decided to become a mercenary all on her own, she wants to work with Slade and is even trying to seduce him. However, Terra still comes off as horribly tragic despite their intentions and other authors have since then picked up on their subtext.

Like, I genuienly think the intention was to just write her as pure evil, but instead what they got was writing her as a bad victim. That is, the kind of victim that presents incredibly unsavory and unlikable reactions to their abuse instead of either being kinder than their abusers, remaining pure and chaste like Cinderella or just waiting to be saved. Terra's not a passive victim nor is she waiting for sympathy, she hurts people the way she has been hurt, she maipulates the way she has been manipulated. Terra's been beaten down and now her goal is to come out on top. I believe the reason why she came out this way has a lot to do with Perez and Wolfram sticking to their guns and never giving her a redemption arc.

The very first time we see her, she’s trying to blow up the Statue of Liberty. It’s just that all the fans assumed because we went out of our way to make her cute — but not too cute, with the buck teeth and everything — everyone would assume that she was gonna become good by the end and that was never the case.

First thing, we made a promise that day that we would never renege on our view that she’d never become good. It’s sometimes hard to do that with characters you like. You want them to become good or something like that. But we never liked the character enough—because we knew what we were doing with her—we never allowed ourselves to fall for the character. Because that’s bad. That’s bad storytelling. You’re doing what you want as a fan at that particular point, not as the creators. The fans had to accept what we were doing and not do the same stories that they had read 14,000 times before. You know, at Marvel, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were villains who became good guys and I could go through a whole list of ’em.

Their commitment to the bit meant that Terra’s story became what was essentially Greek tragedy at that point. Terra was always fall and because of that, Wolfram and Perez dedicate a lot of time in the story showing the audience exactly what all of her flaws are and why those flaws are the reason for that fall. They committed to their creative decisions when writing this character, which is why Terra ends up being such a strong character, especially for the time. Of course there were female villains, but they weren’t really allowed to be complex victims to the degree that Terra is, have her entire range of negative traits, have her flaws fully on display and then still have it be a tragic ending when she does not get saved.

Gwen Stacy was always going to die, and Terra was never going to be redeemed. I do not believe either of those cases are fridging because sometimes characters die in fiction, and sometimes they contribute more ot the story dead than they do alive. Terra’s the first real loss for the Teen Titans, it also came on the cusp of a time in DC where teenage superheroes and sidekicks started to die (Cough, Cough, Jason Todd). Under the Red Hood and Judas Contract are such effective and lasting comic book storylines because they are such tightly written tragedies yes... both of them depict a bad victim who does not get saved (even though that is the whole point of both arcs).

Terra is in fact, probably more comparable to Under the Red Hood Jason than she is Gwen Stacy because she is number one a teenager with problems who probably should not have been made a superhero in the first place, and two a trauma victim who copes by manipulation and violence to try to reclaim control of their lives. But, to bring the Gwen Stacy comparison back. Gwen Stacy was always going to die, Terra was always going to die, but unlike Gwen Stacy Terra is not anyone’s love interest she is the protagonist. Peter Parker fails to save Gwen because the Green Goblin attacked her, she was killed to hurt Peter Parker. Terra pulls the arena down on herself and buries herself alive in Samson and Delilah-esque fashion at the end of her own personal tragic arc.

To get to the real differences between the two characters though, characterization wise, I think both versions start with the same central concept, this is a troubled teenager who should never have been made a hero.

Terra is a deeply troubled teen, however the way she copes in both versions are wildly different, almost opposite. I like to say cartoon Terra has like, at any moment five different personalities, while comics Terra has no personality.

2. Runaway Girl

To elaborate on this, cartoon Terra’s entire character revolves around how unstable her sense of self is, due to never having any stability in her life. The cartoon is actually very purposeful in showing in both imagery and metaphor Terra’s splintered sense of self. The first few lines of dialogue introducing her are this.

“She’s not in trouble, she was leading it into a trap.” “Question is, who is she?” Slade: “Don’t get too attached my young friend, I saw her first.”

Said by the Titans and then Slade. Even in the first lines introducing her, not only is the question of who she is asked, but Slade immediately tries to claim her from the titans. Later on in the show, the way Terra acts around the Teen Titans as a group, the way Terra acts when she is with Slade, the way Terra acts when alone with Beast Boy, the way Terra acts when alone with Raven are all wildly different versions of herself, to the point where it’s hard to believe she’s the same girl sometimes.

This is even apparent in the first episode before Slade even gets to her. Terra insists that she enjoys sleeping outside, she enjoys running from place to place, she doesn’t really want a place to stay for the night, she’s presenting herself as some sort of self-reliant and worldly traveler instead of what she really is, a homeless runaway kid. Terra is attempting to appear calm, cool, and responsible and she is absolutely none of these things, and she’s pretty transparent about it too. She cool girls herself so people will like her. The second she is alone in Beast Boy and loses control of her powers for 30 seconds, she immediately crashes, starts berating herself and her self esteem sinks to the bottom of the ocean.

Trust, is something constantly brought up again and again with Terra’s character though I would say Terra despite literally being the main character of an arc called the Judas Contract, despite betrayal being the one thing she is known for... always sees herself as getting betrayed first. Which is why she overreacts to the perception that Beast Boy broke a promise to keep her powers safe in the first episode. Terra doesn’t trust people at all. Though, to trust people and form healthy relationships with them, you actually have to be a fully developed and well-rounded person which Terra is not. Terra is basically a foster kid who has been through several families before this, waiting for her current one to dump her. She has interanlized the idea that there is something wrong with her that makes this rejection happen, but she doesn’t know how to fix it, or how to be better the kind of person that can have those healthy friendships so she dedicates herself into hiding those flaws instead.

Terra: You don’t belong with the Titans. Terra: You don’t know anything about you. Slade: On the contrary Terra, I know everything about you. I’ve been watching you for some time. I know why you’re always running away. I know your secret, little girl.

This is also why she runs from the Titans to Slade. It’s a question I see commonly asked about cartoon Terra, if she’s meant to be more sympathetic than comic books Terra why does she willingly go to Slade instead of staying with the Titans? Which is a silly question, because you might as well be asking why do grooming victims get groomed? Why don’t they just know that groomers are bad people?

Teenagers are not grownups. Especially not Terra, a bastard child rejected by her parents who has been on the run for however many years. Terra is a teenager and a severely underdeveloped teenager at that, and she has learned to survive on the streets yes, but that’s not really the same as learning to be a functional person, who can have healthy relationships with people, and control their emotions. Children actually require parents to nurture and teach them and raise them up to be more functional adults, and they also require the stability adults in their lives provide them.

Terra goes to Slade because he is an adult who is promising to be there for her, and give her control and stability which are things adults in her life have failed to give her. She can’t trust the Titans to give her these things because they are children one as Slade needles her into believing they cannot understand or help her, and two the way Terra has lived her life up to this point a transactional relationship with Slade makes more sense to her head than the found family the Teen Titans have based on love and trust because Terra is a stranger to both of those concepts.

Terra is also someone who has little control over her life in general, which is why cartoon Terra is so passive in comparison to comic book Terra. In the episode Betrayal itself, Terra keeps her foot in the door about the actual betrayal the whole way, and seems to change her mind on what she wants several time. Because Terra has five different personalities. Ginger Terra, Sporty Terra, Posh Terra, Scary Terra, and Baby Terra. Terra doesn't have a cohesive sense of self so she's entirely reactive, she just does what she thinks will keep her safe in the moment. Terra wants safety and control of her powers so she goes to Slade. Terra feels guilty about what she does for the Titans so she tries to run away from Slade for the moment. Beast Boy asks her out on a date, but because Terra's betraying the Titans that night Terra says no. Five minutes later, Terra says yes. She is constantly changing her mind and contradicting herself like this.

Which is where we get to the greatest contradiction this episode, Terra betrays the titans and clearly feels guilty about it,b ut instead of say telling the Titans what she did or coming clean she just runs away. Which is where we get to the extremely subtle imagery of Terra in a house of mirrors.

Terra can't face her reflection over and over again, because she can't face herself, because she has no sense of self. She doesn't know why she does these things, but she's done them now, and she's stuck with those choices.

Terra: Beast Boy, I'm so sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen. Beast Boy: Then why did you let it? Terra: I don't know okay, I don't know. Slade he helped me. He saved me from myself. He said I owed him. Beast Boy: So, it was all just a game. You were just pretending. Terra: No. You said you'd be my friend no matter what, remember?

This is also Terra's most honest display of remorse, and the exact moment Terra gets rejected, crying and begging for forgiveness for what she's done and after that is the point where she goes full villain. Terra goes from baby Terra, to Scary Terra. A lot of who cartoon Terra is born from fear of moments like this where she is rejected. Terra was the one who tricked Beast Boy and Beast Boy is rightfully upset of course, but in Terra's mind only able to see her own hurt feelings Beast Boy is the one who broke the promise to her. Terra internalizes the fact she cannot be forgiven at that point and seeing no other recourse goes full villain and insists she feels no guilt, she wanted to destroy the titans to begin with, it was all a lie. The complete inversion of how she acted in the betrayal episode. Terra is manipulative, spiteful, hungry for power and yes she's capable of being all of those things but one important thing is.

The second, the second Slade starts mistreating her and beating her Terra immediately wants out. It turns out it's not power or control Terra wanted at all with Slade, but the idea of safety he provided her. The moment it becomes unsafe for her she tries to leave again, because Terra is a child desperately seeking safety in a world that feels unsafe for her, and she'll find it by crushing people she perceives to be a threat if she has to.

That is Terra in a nutshell, she doesn't feel safe anywhere, or with anybody. She has no stable foundation. She is the human embodiment of the tower card in Tarot. No matter how hard she tries to trust others and trust in return, because those are basic human urges we all have, she ends up falling down. It's interesting for a character who is so famous for betrayal, how much of her arc shows she clearly wants to be accepted and trusted by others, and gets hurt at the idea of their rejection. Even the day she literally betrayed Beast Boy before taking him out on a date she asks him this.

Terra: Do you trust me? Beast Boy: More than anyone I've ever met.

I would say Terra's inability to trust doesn't come from the fact she's a bad person or a bad victim, but because she doesn't have the tools to form healthy relationships because of how seriously neglected a child she is. A part of the tragedy of Terra is because Terra cannot save herself, because she is a child. Just like how the Titans have such difficulty saving her, because they are children too and they're not really emotionally prepared to save a person as morally grey and as in need as Terra, and the only adult in the situation is Slade who is there to take advantage.

Transitioning too. Comics Terra, while cartoon Terra has too much personality, Comics Terra has too little. She was written to be a sociopath, and that's not really my term that's how the writers describe her though I can dig up evidence she shows clear signs of being capable of having attachment to people. I'd say rather than a sociopath she's more written as an enigma. Terra's motives are spurious, her actions are inconsistent, she seems to be driven by spite. She is an incredibly angry kid with a chip on her shoulder who seems to be capable of anything.

Cartoon Terra is trying to play along with other peopel's expectations to her, while comics Terra rejects everyone's expectations. She loathes cute teenage girl superheroes. She finds dressing up in costumes and fighting crime to be ridiculous in the first place. Though, I would say despite saying she clearly hates the titans, literally the next panel she displays some affection for Kid Flash.

Comics Terra isn't completely unfeeling, she's capable of forming connections to people, she has a fondness for Geo-Force her brother, Kid Flash, and sort of for Beast Boy she just never fully forms relationships with them.

Terra's not really even maintaining much of a cover with the Titans, because both with Slade and the Titans she is a rude, belligerent raunchy kid who is trying to constantly get into other people's faces. Terra is all of those things, she just when she is alone with Slade also pretends she is an adult, in an adult relationship with him. (Cough, cough, grooming victim. A victim of sexual grooming in this sense too).

Terra's written to be a sociopath yeah, or at least her writers tried too but I'd say she's more a character who the audience has little to no idea what is going on in her head. A lot of her is left ambiguous. Considering her backstory though, the rejected bastard of a king, someone who is working as a mercenary at fifteen, she clearly has not had a good life. Just like cartoon Terra she is lacking a sense of self.

However, instead of eschewing her agency, Terra takes her agency from other people. Cartoon Terra is good at manipulating when she wants to be, but Comics Terra sees the world in terms of every relatonship is transactional and based on manipulation, the world is winners and losers, the world is about who is on top and who is on the bottom. Terra lacks no real goal, or purpose, no friend, no home no loved ones she really only wants to crawl up on top of others if she has to.

Which is exactly why she gets into a relationship with Slade. Comics Terra seems to think her and Slade are equals, and that she is manipulating and using him as much as he is using her. The tragedy in this case arises from the fact that you know, Terra is a fifteen year old girl and Slade is three times her age.

There's an entire chapter where we follow around Terra montiofring people with contacts, and she's going about the titans daily lives just, telling Slade how much she hates them the whole time, but then she stops to ask Garfield why he's constantly being rude to other people and seems genuinely interested in listening to him talk about his feelings.

Terra's only out for herself, she is out to define herself and not let anyone else tell her who she is and who she should be. Terra's selfishness makes sense though considering the situation she is, she's either made to feel nothing like how she was with her family, or she is being sexually groomed by a guy three times her age. Her response to that, her extreme self interest and only caring about her own survival really is her way of fighting back against a world that she sees as trying to wear her down.

And that's a key part of her character Terra is a grooming victim who is also a bad victim. She's being groomed and her way of reclaiming her agency is to insist she wants sex, she wants to hurt people, that actually she's the one manipulating Slade. It's all Terra trying to assert control in a situation where she has none. I don't know if you know this, but a fifteen year old can't manipulate a guy in his fifties who has been doing this for years. Terra also, projects a lot of her hate for her situation and her lot at life at the Titans.

They did not do anything wrong to her, but at the same time she's pretty cosntantly unhappy with them, she complains none of them like her, she complains about their lack of trust, I believe that's less Terra trying to infiltrate them and more Terra herself either believing she cannot fit in anyhwere or as a person who only believes in transactional relationships and manipulation just not understanding how family works.

Terra also acts like dangerously unstable at all times, there's a point in the comics where Beast Boy gets way too aggressive with his flriting, that he full on triggers what resembles a PTSD response in her and she tries to bury him alive.

At times like this when Terra is made to feel she's either not the one with the power here, or being looked down upon she asserts herself with violence to desperately try to regain control. It is not healthy by any means, but it is still the behavior of someone who is coping incredibly poorly. Terra relies on fear and control to make herself feel safe at times like this, because she's not been shown love early on in her life and by this point she genuinely does not understand it. And also I cannot emphasize this enough as a victim of sexual grooming, Terra is pretty much not ever safe, or in a situation where she has bodily agency or control.

Terra in the cartoon dies in a heroic sacrifice, whereas Terra in the comics dies because she loses control of her power and essentially suicides. If anything the tragedy here is that Terra is someone who never learned to be a girl properly, nor was she appreciated as a human being and because of that she formed her entire sense of self around her powers. She is a child, and never having been allowed to be one, and not knowing how to live in this world, form relationships with people, trust and be trusted she dies as a child. Terra once again has nothing solid to build herself on, and because of that the tower falls down.

3. Terra and Beast Boy

In the cartoon Terra and Beast Boy are clearly meant to be in a relatoinship, in the comics Terra claims to have hated him all along, but arguably she could have been fond of him.

In both versions the relationship is entirely wrong headed from the start. A lot of it has to do with Beast Boy's flaws as a character. I wrote on and on how immature of an individual Terra is, and Beast Boy as the youngest on the team shares many of those immature and selfish traits. IN the comic itself that seems to be the reason why Beast Boy and Terra are paired together, they are the closest in age, she is the new girl and the trope Terra is made to deconstruct is the cute comic book love interest.

Comic book Garfield is almost more immature than cartoon Garfield, and on top of that is a full blown male chauvinist. A lot of people do not like Wolfram/Perez Beast Boy, I kind of love him because he doesn't understand woman's boundaries and thinks he desperately needs to get into a relationship and makes them uncomfortable because he sees his flriting as harmless to them... you know like a teenage boy. Unlike most characters like this that appear in media, this quality of Beast Boy's is something that gets called out on all the time.

Terra and Beast Boy do have something in common in that they are both outsiders to the group, they are the youngest so no one takes them seriously, they are almost always stuck together, there's a scene where they're both getting tutored by a tutor Garfield's rich father hired and they're both such ADD kids no one wants to be there. She does have at least one genuine moment of connection like this one.

Their immaturity is what makes them the most similiar, but they go about the inferiority they feel towards other people in opposite ways, Terra sets out to try to prove that she is better than other people by asserting herself, while Beast Boy tries to bend over backwards to win their love.

Terra sympathizes with Beast Boy because they share the same root cause of the issue, but they cope in opposite ways and because of that she looks down on him as just another kid. Which is something Terra is desperately trying to prove she is not. Terra genuinely does go out of her way to kiss him which shows this conversation at least affected her, she has moments of being genuine around Beast Boy, but I think this and every version of Beast Boy is too immature to ever reach her. Because to return to the male chauvinist aspect of Beast Boy's character, not long after this scene he full on triggers Terra by coming on way too hard to her.

Beast Boy wants a girlfriend, to validate his feelings, to make him feel special when he feels like he is the only kid, and the one most often left behind in a group of adults. He tries to make Terra into his love interest and Terra does not want to play that role at all. There are moments where Terra is genuine with Beast Boy, and he might have been able to reach her, but Beast Boy is so obssessed with the image of Terra he has built in his head and the idea of having her he's never able to even come close to her.

Beast Boy cannot understand Terra with any sort of nuance whatsoever, because she's a woman who doesn't really want to play along with any image of her in his mind.

Their cartoon relationship is much less destructive, but really suffers from the same fundamental problem. Both the episode "Terra" and the episode "Betrayal" feature Beast Boy trying to make Terra a promise that he cannot keep. The first time he promises to keep her powers a secret, he actually keeps that one but the perception that he's betrayed her is what makes Terra run. The second time Beast Boy promises to accept her no matter what she does, only to reject her when she is openly weeping and apologizing at his feet out of remorse.

Like, if you wanted to save Terra. To convince her to turn back to the side of good there was never a time more ideal than that but Beast Boy spits in her face. Because while he's a hero he's also a fifteen year old boy feeling hurt and betrayed. This is Beast Boy's Orpheus turning back to look at Eurydice moment.

Beast Boy's attraction to Terra is sort of instant and a kiddie crush, but any relationship they might have had is broken by the time Terra runs away at the end of their first episode together. Afterwards Terra has already betrayed the Titans, and Beast Boy is clinging to the girl Terra appeared to be the first time they met.

Beast Boy doesn't really fully comprehend Terra, which is why the literal last episode of the series is Beast Boy stalking Terra all day long and insisting that he knows her best, and he knows certain things about her and acting confused when she tells him that she was never that way, she never liked sleeping outside, she wasn't the girl he thought she was.

I went to great length to show how Terra's emotional immaturity results in her constant flip-flopping and contradiction, but Beast Boy shows the exact same behavior. Beast Boy in the cartoon tries to play roles to Terra that he is not emotionally mature enough to play. While at the same time. The first is he tries to be the one protecting her, the one guaranteeing her stability. In the first episode he is the one who stays with Terra and calms her down after Slade triggers her into nearly causing an earthquake.

At the same time by the end of that episode he's unable to make Terra stay because she's so hurt at the idea he betrayed one secret. Beast Boy is also the same person who one episode ago told Terra that she didn't have any friends to her face when she was crying and apologizing and just left her there, and the very next episode gets angry when the titans say Terra is irredeemable. Beast Boy that was you. You said that, to her face.

Beast Boy: Terra, you're our friend. Terra: I don't have any friends, remember?

Beast Boy wants to act like a hero saving Terra, but he's not that great of a hero, nor is he emotionally mature enough to do that. Which is why we get this behavior of Beast Boy, first reaching out to save her, and then resorting to victim blaming when he feels like he can't save her. He jumps between I am Terra's best friend, I know she was there all along, to just Terra doesn't have any friends. Terra you wanted to do these things, it was your choice. There's no consistency in Beast Boy's actions, because Beast Boy doesn't really know what to do he is vulnerable and desperate, because a person who he cares about has hurt him, and is also hurting.

Beast Boy is once again trying to put Terra into a simple and easy to understand box. He is acting like the hero of the story, and she flips between his villain and his love interest when that's not the case. Terra's more focused on Terra herself, she cares about Beast Boy but she's also just trying to survive. Beast Boy is a little bit too focused on his relationship with Terra, and like the validation he wants to get from her that he can't look at Terra as a whole person, or realize from an outsider's perspective she's a kid in dire need of saving. Well he does at times, but like I said he flips between advocating for never giving up on her, and victim blaming her because Terra is not easy to understand and he cannot make up his mind.

Terra is the main character of her own story and Beast Boy doesn't know how to comprehend her that way, or set himself aside to look at things from Terra's perspective because he's fifteen and stuck inside his own head with all those adolescent feelings and hormones.

In both versions, I think Beast Boy mistakes what could have been a strong friendship for romance because he is obsessed with getting into a relationship without really understanding what that entails. Beast Boy not being a good boyfriend at fifteen is actually perfectly understandable, the whole tragedy of the Judas Contract in general is that just like Terra is too immature to save herself from her situation, the Titans also just being kids are too young to save her.

They also both try to jump into a relationship without building a solid friendship first, because they both need love and stability and have no idea how relationships are supposed to work. It's like they both fell in love with the people they were when they first met and the relationship never evolved. They are similar and there is a connection, but rather than the things they have in common bringing them together, it drives them apart.

#beast boy #tara markov #terra #teen titans #teen titans meta #tt meta #new teen titans #terra markov #terra teen titans #garfield logan #bbterra #beast boy x terra #judas contract #metasks

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andreafmn · 1 year

Text

12 Days of Ficmas - Day 10

Prompt (by @12-days-of-ficmas): fighting while setting up the christmas tree/soft emo reconciliation

Word Count: 2.9K

Story Description: (Y/N) understood how hard Aaron worked, and everything that his job entailed. But when life starts to happen without him around, she can't help but feel scared that his job is taking things that can never be replaced.

Fandom: Criminal Minds

Pairing: Aaron Hotchner x Female!Reader

Warnings: whole lotta angst, also pregnancy trope (oops)

A/N: I'm all caught up!!

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Keeping Promises

Working in the BAU was taxing work, and (Y/N) understood that. It called for long hours, traumatizing cases, and a lot of time away. Being part of the behavioral analysis unit meant sacrificing moments with loved ones, missing child milestones, and looking over holidays. All of that (Y/N) understood – she always understood.

Since she met the unit’s chief, she had learned just how much being a special agent took from a person. Aaron Hotchner had missed anniversaries, birthdays, parent-teacher conferences, and many other dates to count. But, of course, she acknowledged how hard it was they worked to keep people they didn’t know safe.

Still, she couldn’t help but get irritated from time to time. It was frustrating to have to tell Jack that his father wasn’t gonna be home for many of the days the little boy deemed special – his soccer games, his spring recital, his camp graduation. It was frustrating to get ready for dates that would never happen. It was frustrating to have to live their family life for the two of them.

“Hotch, we were supposed to pick out the tree by last week, and have it all decorated for this weekend,” (Y/N) spoke into her phone since it was the only way she could communicate with her husband. “You promised Jack we would have you home for Christmas this year, that we would do everything we haven’t in a very long time.”

“Look, (Y/N), I told you it wasn’t a sure thing that we’d be done with this case. I know I told him that I would be home, but I can’t just leave in the middle of work,” Hotchner argued. He knew he was hurting his family, the same thing he had done years ago and had vowed not to do again. “Just get a tree and we’ll decorate it when I come back.”

“Baby, you can’t keep doing this. He was so excited to have you home this weekend. You can’t keep making promises like this to him and not seeing them through. It’s gonna break the poor kid.”

“What do you want me to do, (Y/N)?” Hotch said, exasperation clearly laced in his words. “I can’t be in two places at once, okay? You knew this when you married me. I have a demanding enough job for you to be pestering me about it every single time I miss something.”

“So, that’s how it’s gonna be then?” the woman said trying to hold back tears. “Just one time, Aaron. I was just asking for this one time for you to be here. I understand that your job keeps you away and I’ve always been fine with it. But Jack misses you. He wanted his father here and he won’t be. Sorry that I had to try one more time before I broke the news to the kid.”

“Honestly, (Y/N), you’re starting to sound just like Hal....” Aaron stopped himself as soon as the words left his mouth. He knew how hard she tried to not push him as his late wife had. “(Y/N), wait…”

“Goodbye, Aaron.”

(Y/N) hung up the phone quickly, allowing herself to let the tears flow freely. She was hurt, she was angry, and she was defeated. She didn’t want to bother her husband about his job, she knew how important it was to him. But she simply wanted to give Jack a Christmas with his father and his mother figure together, at least once. If she couldn’t do it for the boy, what chance did the one that she had found out she was carrying have?

Instead of moping, she called up her brother and asked him if he could pick up a tree for her. He was the only one close enough that could.

“Do you think you could take Jack with you? I want him to be able to do Christmas-y things,” she told her brother Dean. “I would but I have horrible morning sickness and I can barely move from the bathroom as is.”

“Yeah, of course, I’ll take the little guy,” Dean chuckled. “But I don’t know how good they’ll be. It’s Christmas Eve Eve. I just can’t believe Aaron won’t be here for this.”

“D, don’t. Please,” (Y/N) sighed. “I already had a fight about it with him. I don’t want to think about it anymore.”

“Sorry, sis. I’ll come by in thirty to pick up Jack, alright?”

“Thanks, Dean. I really appreciate it.”

She went up the stairs to find little Jack in his bedroom drawing. The thing she dreaded the most was the sad gaze that fell upon him every time she had to tell him his father wouldn’t make it. But she would never badmouth his father to him – he was a hero.

“Hey, buddy. What’re you drawing there?”

“It’s a present for daddy,” he exclaimed. “This is you, daddy, and me decorating our tree. Isn’t it pretty?”

“Wow! It’s great, bud.” She had to hold back her tears again, not wanting the kid to be worried. “Jack, listen. Daddy’s not gonna be able to make it tonight like planned. But he has a case for you. You need to go with uncle Dean and you’re gonna pick out the best tree you can find – any tree you want. Make sure it’s big and pretty, okay?”

“Alright, I’m on it!” Excitement filled his voice; sure this is what was meant to happen.

The kid didn’t know any better yet. He still had high hopes for his father and thought he got sad when Aaron wasn’t there, he believed (Y/N) when she told him it was all part of a plan. He got ready quickly and told her all about the tree he was planning to get.

When his uncle got there, he was more than excited about going on his mission. (Y/N) zipped up his jacket, put his mittens on, and fixed the hat on his head. After she placed a kiss on his cold cheek, she helped him up into Dean’s truck.

“Okay, bud. Have a lot of fun with uncle Dean. I’ll see you when you get back,” she told him as she buckled him in his car seat. “Call me if you need anything.”

“Will do, momma,” he responded, kissing her cheek. “See you later.”

She waved goodbye as the pair rode out of the driveway. Soon after, she was on her knees in front of the toilet, barfing out what little she could eat for breakfast.

Alone in the house, her fears crept in again. What if she did have to raise Jack and the baby all by herself? What if one day she got the call that Hotch wasn’t coming back? In his line of work, anything could happen to Aaron – anytime and anyplace. It scared her. It gave her a crippling anxiety she could barely contain many days.

Hours passed and she went through a rollercoaster of emotions. At first, she was angry, then she was sad, then anxious, and finally angry again. She didn’t want to feel this way, but she couldn’t control it. Mainly it was the hormones but worrying over Hotchner often left her this way.

To distract her mind, she cleaned around the house, wrapped Jack’s presents, and cooked dinner. (Y/N) needed to focus on anything but Aaron or the baby. Because the more she thought about it, the more emotional she got.

By the time the boys came back to the house, (Y/N) was exhausted.

Jack ran into the house, the ball of energy he always was, and startled her. He was excited about the tree they had gotten and had not stopped talking since he stepped into the house. The boy plopped on the sofa right next to her, giving her a big hug as he continued his rambling.

Meanwhile, Dean struggled to pull the tree into the house. The tree was big enough and he was by himself. But with (Y/N)’s and Jack’s rooting, he was able to place it on the base and stabilize the trunk.

After they ate dinner and Dean left for his own place – with a bottle of whiskey as payment – (Y/N) readied Jack for bed. He was exhausted after a long and exciting day. As he kept talking about all they did, his eyes started to betray him, making his head bob.

“Do you think we could wait for daddy to do the tree?” Jack asked as he yawned.

“Well, honey, I’m not sure when he’s getting home,” she told him. “And tomorrow’s Christmas Eve so we won’t have much time to finish it.”

“I just want daddy to be here. We were going to do the tree together. He promised.”

“I know, buddy.” More tears. She bit down on her tongue so the liquid didn’t fall. She had to be strong, for Jack’s sake. “What if he comes in really late? You know you have to be asleep for Santa to leave your presents.”

“Well, you can do it then. But only if he comes in late. Promise?”

“I absolutely promise, darling,” she smiled down at him. “Good night, bud.”

“Night, momma.”

(Y/N) kissed his forehead and tucked him in, making sure he was warm for the night before turning off the light. She went to bed promptly after, a couple of tears in her eyes and ager swimming through her veins. Something told her Aaron wouldn’t be coming home on time.

***

The whole day.

Jack and (Y/N) were waiting the whole day for Aaron to walk through the doors, but he never did. She even went as far as to leave him a couple of angry voicemails on the phone. He simply didn’t come home.

Morning slowly shifted to night. And as snow packed onto the pavement outside, (Y/N)’s anger grew.

Time trickled by, and Jack grew more and more tired. As eleven o’clock rolled around, Jack was sound asleep on the couch. He had waited as long as he could for his dad to come home, but his body couldn’t take it.

Two more hours and (Y/N) heard movement outside. Headlights brightened the living room, Aaron’s car coming into view. As soon as it did, boiling anger crept over her. She put on a coat and went to meet her husband outside.

“Look, (Y/N)…” Aaron tried to start before his wife talked, but she beat him to the punch.

“No, Aaron. I’m tired of excuses. I’m tired of you saying that it’s your job. Tired of you going back on what you say to save other people. Meanwhile, I am doing my absolute best to keep this family together,” she sobbed. “You told me you had taken those days off to be here with Jack. That’s all he wanted for Christmas, he wanted his father to be here. But you couldn’t help it, could you? You still took another case. You couldn’t keep your promise, Aaron.”

“(Y/N), I know. I just…”

“Daddy!” Jack interrupted them, running into his father’s arms. “I knew you would make it.”

“Of course, buddy. I tried really hard to get here on time, but work held me back.”

“That’s okay,” the boy smiled. “We can do the tree now.”

“Honey, it’s a little late to be up,” (Y/N) told him. “But tomorrow we’ll all be together to open Santa’s present.”

“But I wanna stay up!”

“Jack, listen to your mom. We’ll do it next year, okay?”

“Okay!” The boy extended his arms to (Y/N), asking her to carry him inside.

She quickly obliged and put the kid in his bed. After going over their night routine, the woman headed downstairs. Her brows were furrowed and her arms crossed against her chest. If Hotchner couldn’t read her body language, he had no business being in his job.

But she didn’t talk. When she got downstairs and they started putting up the decorations, she didn’t say a single word. Instead, she worked around Aaron, who had rolled his sleeves and loosened his tie as he helped her. Or at least tried to.

Every time he placed an ornament out of place, (Y/N) would scoff or grunt in annoyance. Soon enough, he was growing tired of the silly game. It was childish and ineffective, he thought but didn’t dare say a word. He had screwed up. She had a right to be mad.

As he picked up a specific ornament, he was meant with another sound of disapproval.

“What now?” he said annoyed.

“That ornament is Haley’s,” she said, “Jack likes to put it at his height so he can look at it every time he stands in front of the tree.”

“I… I didn’t know.”

“I know you didn’t, Aaron. That’s because you’re never here to see these kinds of things. You didn’t know he likes to put all of his mother’s ornaments where he can see them; that he only asked Santa for a full day with his dad; he even drew a goddamn picture of how he wanted today to go,” she finally said. “That’s why he wanted you here. Because there are things he wants to do with you and show you, but he can’t. You’re missing out on him.”

“And I wish I could be here all the time, (Y/N), but I can’t. I can’t just decide today’s not good for me,” he responded. “Don’t you think it hurts me to miss those moments with him? That I wouldn’t trade it all for a day with him? But my work needs me.

“Your family needs you too!” She tried her best to keep her voice down, worried she’d wake the kid. But her emotions were taking over her, tears stinging her eyes. “We need you too, Aaron.”

“Where is this coming from? You’ve never been this pushy about my work. It makes no sense.”

“Because I’m scared!”

“Of what, (Y/N)?”

“That one day you won’t come home,” she sobbed. “I’m terrified every time you walk out that door; every time you don’t pick up your phone; every time you are SSA Hotchner, I am terrified. I don’t want to wake up one day and receive the call that you’re gone. Because I can’t do any of this without you, Aaron. I can’t raise a family without you – I don’t want to.

I know you love your job and I get the risk that comes with it – which is why I try my best not to bother you about it. But things have changed and your job can’t be the biggest thing in your life. You are not your job, Aaron.”

“What do you mean, darling? What has changed?”

“I’m pregnant.”

Aaron couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Everything was finally clicking into place. But he couldn’t find the right words to say as he processed the information he was given.

“Please, say something, Aaron. Anything.”

“God, I am so sorry, (Y/N).” He wrapped her in a tight hug, one hand on her neck and the other on the small of her waist. He needed to hold her and let her know he was there for her. “I shouldn’t have taken the case, you’re right. And I shouldn’t have said those stupid things I said. I should’ve kept my promise, but I couldn’t help myself. It’s hard for me to release control, and when the case fell on my desk I ignored my free days and went to Sacramento; I’m so sorry.

I know it must be hard to have to care for Jack, and now finding out you’re pregnant. I’m sorry I haven’t been here enough for you, darling.”

“I’m not asking you to give up your job, honey,” she cried into his chest. “I simply want for you to be more present. To be in your son’s life, to be in this baby’s life… in mine. That’s all we want.”

“And I will try harder at it, (Y/N). I swear I will.” Hotch was crying now, holding (Y/N)’s jaw with both of his hands to stare into her eyes. “I don’t want you to feel alone anymore. I don’t want to see Jack’s life through a video lens, much less this baby’s. Starting today, I promise you – and this time I intend to keep it – that I will be more present in our family. I can’t lose you either, darling.”

Aaron wiped away her tears before placing a kiss on her lips. It was a touch they needed, a touch they missed. Being away didn’t hurt one of them more than the other. It hurt them both.

“So, you’re pregnant?” Aaron chuckled as he wiped his tears away. When she nodded, he smiled brightly at her. “I’m gonna be a dad again.”

“You are, honey,” (Y/N) finally smiled. “But right now, we have to finish up this damn tree and put the presents under the tree.”

“Well, I know I’ve got the best present already. And I will do everything I can to guard it with my life.”

Taglist: @winter-soldier-101 @zheezs14 @DyslexicCatterpillar @cevans-winchester @bluetreecloud20 @Valejewel @sunsetcurvej @sapnapsbandana @lilozg-123 @esposadomd @nocturnalherb16 @Six-Call @Yuki254 @AKG40 @nyenye @captainrogers-19 @beckiej0073-blog @cecehensonn @catgirlpwr @ilikepunsbeth @magimtz23 @adaydreamaway08 @hufflepuffobsessedwithmarvel @sugasthreedollarkookie @fandomonetwo

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imagionationstation · 2 months

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Hi! I read your TMNT 2012 separated au that you made with ellestrade and it really gave me brainworms so I wrote a small one-shot for it! The characters kinda ended up writing themselves haha.

anyways, wanted to share it with you and also make sure that you're okay with it. Not sure how you feel about other people taking inspiration from you ideas, so if you would like me to take it down, just let me know!

Thanks for sharing such fun ideas. Here's the post (I've also tagged you in it but sometimes tags are weird and don't always show. Also its on my fandom specific sideblog, but I am the same person haha)

Gotta love those brain worms! (Ironic statement from a 2012 viewpoint, actually-) HOLY CHALUPA, BRAIN WORMS IN THIS AU UNIVERSE, WAIT WAIT ACTUALLY WAIT-

*background rambles and spazzing*

Okay, I’m back.

I’m always a-okay with whatever fan things anyone wants to create with inspiration from something I made or helped make. As long as it isn’t containing some stamp that says “this I deem canon” when neither me (nor my partner) deemed it canon, no one ever has to worry with me getting upset over some story/comic/art.

I’m going to give some thoughts and I want to disclaimer.

When I discuss my thoughts on your POV of events in the AU, I will never, in any way, intend to diss or attack the story. I think the flow was excellent and Raph’s analysis of the events occurring was intriguing. I loved it! And nothing I say will be a statement otherwise.

But, since I have a distinct inability to keep my mouth shut when it comes to turtles and you asked, I have thoughts 🧐

My brain is now turning and ya’ll have to deal.

Characterization:

Donnie: Much distrust. Much sass. A strong sense of duty to defend his brethren turtles who don’t deserve it but he’s doing it anyway.

Very on point. Much approval 👌

Mikey: Could not be more perfect. I love him. Sweet soul ✨

Leo: He’s a bit less… Forceful. Cold and calculating. Than I envision.

I’d imagine that he had to learn to shut feelings down in order to survive. Fidgeting/smiling/visibly hesitating is out of the question. Staying in Shredder’s graces meant learning to play the game. His silence is what earns Raph the ability to be loud. The only times that he’s himself is when him and Raph are alone, outside of the sight of cameras, or when someone in is danger and fear/fury overwhelms all else. He seems bland to outsiders and it takes the Hamato brothers a while to see that that he’s just a scared little boi at heart that’s just trying his best in a cruel world.

He’s also set in his beliefs, so he’s going to assume that they’re being tormented mentally, if not physically. There’s no place in his mind that wonders if they were actually safer elsewhere.

I do like your POV, though. Plenty for me to play with.

Raph:

He’s ABSOLUTELY the first to question the differences between how Shredder treats them and how Splinter treats their brothers. He doesn’t jump the gun, but as devoted as he is, he’s never really liked Shredder. I love the implications that he’s been filing away concerns subconsciously and his brain keeps poking him like “HELLO?!”

He’s very deep. I can’t decide how I feel about that 🤔

Shredder would have wanted to fan that temper into something unforgiving and vile. Or course, that doesn’t mean he stops being a sensitive soul. It could… Have something to do with Shredder manipulating him into being angry when he wills it (basically all the time) and solemn and still when he doesn’t (such as during lectures, punishments, etc).

His brain registers this situation as one where he’s not meant to be loud and angry, and so he’s kinda… Shut down. Sassy, but mellow. Processing. Adapting. Letting what happens happen because he’s not meant to stop it.

It’s a reason that Leo gets so defensive when punishments come into play. It forces Raph to feel small. It make him vulnerable.

HOLY MOTHER OF MUTATIONS- I AM IN LOVE WITH THIS NEW TAKE ON THE AU @ellestrade TELL ME IF I’M ONTO SOMETHING

Anyway, commentary:

“in one of Takeō's strategy books he couldn't care less about”

It’s like Space Heroes. He claims so and YET he read, recalls, AND clearly has DEBATED the passage so I call sus vibes.

I get giddy when I think of Takeō discovering Space Heroes-

“Junkō and Kōta— or Donnie and Mikey, whatever false name they’d been given—”

My brain made connections. I don’t know if it was intended, but I always believe that they knew them by Shredder’s names through the beginning of season one, end of season one/beginning of season two they were associating them as both, and then by the time that the City is under attack, they’ve adapted to using their real names. (But the Saki brothers still keep their Foot names.)

So, now I assume this is somewhere in that middle plot.

Fun little Easter egg~

“Takeō and Akihitō were the offense, and Donnie and Mikey were the defense” “They held their own. In fact, they dominated.”

I’m in love with Raph’s simple acknowledgment of their roles in battle. It’s a very practical outline of exactly how their dynamic on the field plays out and he's so certain of his place.

On the other hand, I’m a bit uncertain about whether they’d dominate. I do believe that they are trained and can hold their own, but I don’t know about them being as impressive as Raph&Leo, simply because Splinter trained them to defend and Shredder trained them to kill. The Hamato brothers haven’t had much time to practice in the offensive, especially since that’s Leo&Raph’s job. (In non-AU canon, they are all offensive/defensive.)

I think Mikey might learn that kinda strength at the farmhouse after being taught by Leo&Raph, and Donnie will step back from that, finally finding his place not as a fighter/leader, but as a scientist.

Definitely an interesting take, tho 🤔

“Only now does he think that, perhaps, there was a reason their master made their primary weapons blunts and not blades.”

I am chewing on this line so hard. It’s so powerful.

I can’t even tell you why. It just is.

“Akihitō knows that Takeō isn’t lying. He’d already tried to take tonight's blame all on his own shoulders, spare Akihitō of the punishment. But Akihitō knows all his tricks and he won’t let his brother suffer alone. Again.”

100% behind Raph learning to butt in when Leo tries to take the fall as they get older and punishments get worse.

“Seeing the situation, the evidence glaring at him, Akihitō cannot deny that this wasn’t exactly a great sell. Takeō and him are tied to the ground, trying to convince these two strangers that they would be safe with them. That their clan would not hurt them while that same clan was just about ready to beat them to a pulp.”

I was thinking the same thing 🤣

Leo, dude, seriously. Look around. Think for a second. You are not selling your point. You are doing the opposite.

In the end, it doesn’t even matter. Sensei will always find them no matter where they run. It was better to follow than be chased.

SOMEONE NEEDS TO TEACH THESE KIDS THAT THIS IS A TOXIC RELATIONSHIP. YOU SHOULD NOT FEEL MOTIVATED TO STAY WITH DAD BECAUSE HE WILL FORCED YOU TO REMAIN OTHERWISE. BRUH. RED FLAG.

These were Foot Ninja binds made specifically to hold them. Mutant strength and all.

It makes sense that Shredder would make these. But.

But man. He made those. For them.

Takeō tries to take control of the situation again, the bossy oldest sibling coming out in him.

HA. Got him. Leo is Leo in any universe.

“His name is Mikey.” Donnie glares. “The rat is lying and he has—” “Donnie, its fine.”

Absolutely how they view things. Mikey doesn’t care what they think or do as long as no one he cares about is paying the price. Donnie feels it is a manner of principle that they accept logic and truth.

Leo talking over both of them is valid. This kid, I swear.

“Then tell your older brother to shut up about—”

LEO IS IT OFFICIAL YOU HAVE BEEN DISOWNED

“Sounds like a you-problem.” Donnie stands. “Mikey, we saved them. It's time to go.”

Donnie would die for them <3

A hand lands on his shoulder, and he recognizes it. Takeō always knows when to give support. He’s a good brother. He hopes Donnie and Mikey will know that one day too.

OH. OKAY. WELL. 🥺

THOSE FEELS CAME OUT OF NOWHERE-

He loved his big bro sm hjkhkjhkjhjkkjhkjhkjhku

If Akihitō didn’t know any better, he’d say it was longing.

Oh, don’t worry, he is dying to have other people in his life who genuinely care for him, but as long as you guys are with the enemy, you’re a threat to his baby brother and daddy and not to be trusted

And, just maybe, it could be their world too.

Oh, so that’s what pain feels like. Glad to be reminded.

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friendofcars · 11 months

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Please drop the essay you refrained from writing in the tags and would also love to hear your thoughts on the mask dream! I think it's one of the most interesting dreams ronan has, especially in tdt. Always really enjoy your thoughts and meta :)

hi so first of all thank you for this very kind message and second of all the 'essay' i mentioned was in fact about the mask dream. and third of all thank you for waiting for my belated response. i wrote the remainder of this post over multiple weeks and didn't proofread any of it and i'm almost positive it gets incoherent in places so please let me know if you want anything clarified.

so, the post i'm referencing is this one by parrishwife about adam and ronan's rather unhinged desire to simultaneously become and be with each other. i coincidentally read it immediately before reading chapter 17 of the dream thieves for the trc book club and my brain exploded a little because i think the mask nightmare plays with the same idea- not explicitly, and maybe not primarily, but there's an element of ronan both fearing and desiring the possibility of adam becoming ronan (or at least like ronan).

i think the most straightforward and plausible interpretation of this chapter is that ronan fears losing adam (to post-traumatic dissociation, to his bargain with cabeswater, as a rejection of ronan's desire for him, etc.) (btw parrishwife also has a brilliant post analyzing the mask dream.) i'm also suggesting that he has a simultaneous fear of adam reciprocating the attraction, which, for ronan, comes hand in hand with self-loathing; desire is fear, it is horror, it is anger; he fears rejection and miscommunication while also fearing that adam will experience self-hatred too. because ronan hasn’t realized his second secret yet, the fear/desire/self-loathing/projection is particularly muddled. This interpretation hinges on my observation that adam is profoundly ronan-like in the dream.

because of my complete inability to omit details, i’m going to put the meat of my observations + analysis under a cut:

first, before i write an absurdly long response, here was my initial comment in the trc book club server after reading the chapter:

and my follow up after some discussion:

and now after musing on this chapter for the past month, here’s a more detailed analysis, almost line by line:

first, in the dream, we're told that “the mask was his father's.” it's ambiguous as to whether niall dreamt, made, or bought the mask, but it's as if ronan has inherited the mask (along with the secret keeping, dreaming, perceived imbalanced devotion in romantic relationship, etc.). the important detail, aside from mask, of course, is father: a) ronan's self-hatred, grief, and depression are directly tied to guilt over niall's murder, all of which inform the way he dreams, unguided and alone, b) adam's bargain with cabeswater kicks off a plot that serves as a metaphor for adam's healing from trauma from his own father, which informs the way he isolates and hides himself from others and c) here we have two boys, traumatized by their fathers in different ways but still with the consequence of repression, with ronan fearing that adam will break/succumb to the fallout of his dual sacrifices (pressing charges and leaving the trailer/giving up his hands and eyes to cabeswater). i mention all of this to start drawing connections between ronan and adam's experiences, how they relate to one another, and how in which ronan's self-hatred manifests in a concern for adam ending up hating himself too (becoming [like] ronan).

we can also consider the setting of the dream: the original mask is at the barns, out of reach in multiple ways (hung high on the wall, on a property from which ronan is banned, and his subconscious won't let him return home in his dreams either) but the consequences of the dream do lead him back to the barns (he manifests the night horrors, which he buries at the barns with his friends; enlisting gansey to help literally kill his demons and everyone else to dispose of the bodies brings him home- it's something he can't do alone -> recurring fear of isolation, the magic of connection, etc.). but ronan already has access to the apartment at st. agnes- adam already lets him sleep there, on the floor, and he's only there in the first place because ronan helped him move there. ronan plays an active role in establishing and maintaining the apartment as adam’s home. and in the dream, the mask is at eye level, both within reach (and, of note, probably where you'd hang a mirror). greater proximity to ronan = greater risk of adam realizing (and reciprocating, or mirroring) ronan's attraction towards him.

all of this is to say that ronan's subconscious is asking him: what if adam was within reach? would you squander the opportunity? what if he's too far gone to cabeswater, out of reach in the wake of abuse? what if keeping adam close is putting him in danger? (there's a line about their changing proximity at the very end of the raven boys that i'm thinking about as i write this.) what if he falls and cuts himself on ronan?

like i mentioned, I think the more straightforward reading of the dream is ronan's fear of losing adam, whether via adam’s trauma responses/dissociation/bargain with cabeswater or as a rejection of ronan’s romantic interest. i'll try to be briefer here since i know it's been discussed (reading this a couple weeks later…i was not brief at all lol). shortly before the dream, cabeswater goes missing. due to the ambiguous consequences of adam's bargain with cabeswater, there's reason to fear adam will also disappear (or at least his hands and eyes, or what they represent -> his skill, his perception, his survival instincts, etc.). then there's the fear of the figurative consequence: adam disappearing in the sense that he completely withdraws and isolates himself from ronan and the others. gansey fears that adam's spirit will break; adam fears he will turn violent (which is why he withdraws). it's not clear which ronan fears, but it might as well be both, given the obscuring nature of the mask and adam's violence in the dream. i don't think ronan fears that adam will purposefully hurt him (given his prophetic refusal to hurt adam, even to save his own life) but he fears he will hurt adam by confessing feelings to him, or by trapping him in henrietta, etc.

in the dream, ronan tells opal (at this point, orphan girl) that cabeswater is gone, which triggers adam’s appearance in the dream (to emphasize the possibility of adam disappearing too). adam says, “far away isn’t the same thing as gone,” which is probably a rare display of optimism from ronan, especially as a counterpoint to the dreamt miniature white plane that is lost to the lake (this symbolizes the potential outcome of losing adam in the context of adam’s doubt/disbelief, which is dismantled by the end of the book when he figures out that ronan paid the rent and loves him, which coincides with ronan realizing he doesn’t hate himself, that the world will not end if adam knows how he feels, and thus the white nigh horror is born as a symbol of adam’s capability of belief in ronan and both of their acceptances of ronan’s feelings). whew.

we then get a description of adam in the dream. he's wearing his aglionby uniform, perhaps to represent a repressed adam hell bent on assimilation to pursue his ambition, but in my interpretation a detail that clues us into some mirroring/becoming of ronan. i'm specifically thinking of the flashback in trb chapter 20 in which adam recalls the catalyst for pursuing aglionby: a confident, affluent, friend-possessing aglionby kid who probably wasn’t but might as well have been ronan. as a counterpoint to the aglionby uniform, adam’s fingers are black with oil, an obvious nod to adam’s fear that his job as a mechanic and poverty betray his attempts at escaping his roots (side note- sacrificing himself to a sentient forest literally roots him further in henrietta/on the ley line), but i can’t help but draw a comparison between the oil mentioned here and nightwash- something we don’t even know whether ronan has canonically experienced yet, but still a visual parallel that signifies limiting, restricting factors in each of their lives (class, disability, etc.) that anchor them to henrietta. if this connection is a coincidence, which it very well could be, the shame both adam and ronan experience remains true in the text, in terms of adam feeling stained by his non-academic yet necessary-for-survival work and ronan’s complex relationship to dreaming. ronan also endures unmaking/nightwash in trk after adam, demon-possessed, chokes him and ronan has the same “will not choose hurting adam to evade death” experience, so this really does all connect in my “no coincidences in trc” brain.

adam takes the mask without asking permission nor hesitating, which seems out of character and ronan-like (read: impulsive), although adam does indeed reach for the mask without asking first when they visit the barns. in trb adam is constantly asking permission, clarifying invitations, hesitating, etc. until he makes his sacrifices, so perhaps ronan’s dream is exploring an adam that acts more and fixates on consequences less (which is quite ronan). the summative effect of these details is ronan’s perception of adam’s own insecurities, curiosities/introspection, etc. which, perhaps unintentionally, make me simultaneously consider ronan’s own difficulty with reconciling his home life, identity, secrets, social position at school, etc. the touching without asking might also prod at a warped sense of intimacy for ronan, especially regarding the nature of ronan’s relationship with kavinsky, but i feel like i need to consider this perspective more before elaborating further.

then, adam holds the mask up to his face- nobody puts the mask on adam; it’s an autonomous choice. autonomy and choice are critical to both of their character arcs, especially in trb for adam and in tdt for ronan. then, adam “becom[es] something else” and the distinction between adam and the wooden mask dissolves as a nod to the concern that adam will become indistinguishable from cabeswater (also predominantly of wood). lots to comment on here: that adam must eventually accept that he isn’t cabeswater, much like he isn’t his father; adam becoming less human and ronan grappling with his human-ness/creature-ness, ronan grappling with the distinction between himself and his manifested dreams, which include cabeswater, etc. if adam is merging with cabeswater and cabeswater in its forest form is inherently an aspect of ronan/his heart/his soul/his mind… much to chew on, even if its founded on their insecurities. adam becoming a creature, like ronan; becoming magic or getting intertwined with it… also rolling around the concepts of a wooden mask, a wooden boy, lies (secrets), autonomy, atypical creation, etc. in my head and coming up with pinocchio which is probably absurd but. i had to admit this. ronan wanting to be a real boy (greywaren choosing humanity) is not not canon in td3. on adam seeming to be carved from wood, maybe a brief exploration of a fear of a lack of distinct identity (ronan fearing adam becoming cabeswater or a part of himself against adam’s wishes); Adam wants to be self-made, not made by anyone else…maybe references pygmalion, galatea, etc.

in the same paragraph, as adam becomes even less-adam like, his teeth become hungry, his jaw starves. teeth are frequently mentioned when describing the lynch brothers, and hunger is a predominant theme for both adam and ronan (“they were both hungry animals, but adam had been starving for longer), and chapter 11 of tdt loops in the gray man and the concept of a hungry knife; i'm not articulating this well but there’s something to say here about ronan being raised to think of himself as a weapon and him fearing adam will succumb to the same, and sharp teeth are the imagery by which i'm connecting these dots (?). adam’s eyes are “desperate and incensed.” he is not only afraid but angry (a very ronan combination of emotions), and the adjective “incensed” even links to ronan’s internal experiences being frequently described as fiery, burning, etc. a vein stands out from adam’s neck; veins stand out from ronan’s body later in the chapter when he’s awake but not yet back in his body. vulnerability, anger, desperation, tension, vitality. the physical parallels are numerous. or maybe just repetitive writing, but i read trc very generously in terms of assuming intention.

then, the dream becomes a nightmare. the mask becomes indistinguishable from adam’s face- anger like a second skin, second secret, tamquam alter idem, horror movie twins, double-headed night horror and all that- it’s a nightmare BECAUSE ronan could be into this (and by “this” i mean the conflation of adam returning his attraction and them becoming more and more like each other), and at this point in the narrative, this desire to be and to be with is obscured by ronan’s depression. adam is described as a creature, a word used to describe ronan too (a genuine compliment from gansey, but an alienating burden of a descriptor for adam and ronan). adam becomes a night horror, which, like cabeswater, is a manifestation of an aspect of ronan- like calls to like, and this is terrifying to ronan.

the night horrors are explicitly described as representations of ronan’s heart and are “in love with his blood and his sadness.” the word choice of “in love” when the night horrors are manifestations of self-hatred and depression and shame is more proof of ronan conflating desire + guilt. ronan’s heart is auto-cannibalizing. do you know what I’m trying to say. as a side note, the mentioned rhythm of ronan’s heartbeat works as a physiological and metaphorical tie to the very feeling of a nightmare. just some nice texture in the nightmare for me as a reader! re: adam, “adam was the horror now” -> adam has become inextricable from ronan/cabeswater/magic -> adam has become one with ronan’s self-hatred adam isn’t the horror for trying the mask on, he’s the horror for realizing and reacting to the mask (here i had a lightbulb moment and had to close my word doc to calm down lol)… and if we equate ronan himself to the mask (the teeth! the hunger! the eyes! a psychological prison only the prisoner can break!) and the nightmare is built upon this dream adam’s rage and terror at his union with the mask… we circle back to the two-headed fear of adam’s rejection AND reciprocation of ronan’s attraction. of course the merging of adam and ronan takes on a completely different connotation in greywaren when they are both eager to merge souls and their codependency and inability to maintain a stable reality without the other is… a lot to think about. Re: “toothful king” more teeth = lynch-like, as we’ve established, but ronan has also been described as a king in his dreamscape; this usually implies creative power but is that what Adam has here? maybe king is more intended to throw focus towards his power over ronan? also, in a ater paragraph, “tooth upon tooth upon tooth” makes me think of rows of teeth…which is sharklike. like the bmw (“if it was sharklike, it had learned how from [ronan]”.)

i'll also make a couple comments about the line “to think about it was to be immobilized with the horror of watching Adam be consumed from the inside out.” 1. the immobilization, whether literal or figurative, is notable in the context of ronan, who is often kinetic, restless, hyperactive, adrenaline-seeking, etc. but is also immobilized post-dream manifestation; taken together, ronan in motion and ronan frozen tell us that for ronan to stop moving and obscuring the secrets he hides in a maelstrom of posturing is to make him vulnerable- and this line is shortly before nightmare adam attacks him. to stay still is to look truth in the face and confess it and bear his heart to it- and his heart itself is the secret. ouroboros. i don’t know. also, cannibalism, probably. that's not really my wheelhouse but it’s in here a little bit. and ronan dreams creatures to love- chainsaw, matthew, opal. he's revulsed by the possibility of creating an adam that loves him, that is made of him or in his image, that lacks autonomy/mobility in relation to ronan.

then comes the violence. before it, ronan takes adam’s arm (as he does at the barns, later) and says his name- saying adam, not parrish, presumably, which is another marker of vulnerability. this line reminds me of “cabeswater: call it by name” or an act of creation, affirmation, that adam is adam (human, a man), and not a monster. despite this act of tenderness, of acknowledgment of independent identity, nightmare adam lunges for ronan while simultaneously trying to remove the mask from his own face (this brings me back to the idea of duality, violence vs. love wielded inwardly and outwardly, double edged swords, the two headed night horror, the self vs others, etc.). his fingers hook ronan the way the night horror hooks in the following chapter- a premonition that gets subverted with the eventual declaration of “claws and beak”/”unguibus et rostro.” adam's face is gone and the mask becomes invisible- the distinction between ronan’s feelings towards adam and adam’s feelings toward ronan is gone. however, perhaps condradicting what I literally just claimed (lol), ronan cannot kill bring himself to kill adam, even this nightmare version, but has not yet realized that he doesn’t want to kill himself either.

“the mouth gaped, door to bloody ruin.” the mouth, not adam’s mouth, not the mask’s mouth. disembodied. there's a whole thesis to write on adam’s relationship to his body and his dissociative experiences, the reintegration he experiences as he repairs the ley line, etc. an open door, especially a door-like mouth, is a confessed secret (think of ronan’s closed door at monmouth), and here, a path to the worst possible outcome.

ronan removes the mask from adam and discovers that it’s easily removable, that the distinction between adam and the mask and that which it represents can be recovered simply and gently, but the removal still ruins adam. a petal peeled from a flower-he loves me, he loves me not… and the strange beautiful flowers ronan dreams… that love is beautiful and not inherently violent… something adam and ronan must individually learn for themselves. adam must distinguish himself from his trauma, from his family, from his bargain with cabeswater. his self-loathing creates an additional prison within the limiting circumstances of his poverty. but as gentle as the removal is, ronan’s heroic action still results in gore- his father’s, rather than his mother’s, account of his birth. adam is reduced to muscle, bone, teeth, eyeball- a collection of parts, but no holistically integrated face. a miracle of moving parts but gruesome. life leaks out of him like nightwash out of ronan. unmasking, confession, secrets you can’t take back, irreversible bargains… ronan says he’ll put the mask back on, will restore adam’s dignity and grant him a shield against vulnerability, but the damage is done. we get a rare “please” (“please work”) from ronan, maybe a prayer, maybe in the same vein of the “please” he thinks when he sees adam for the first time (cdth chapter 5).

and finally, the lab blood dna line around which i will talk in circles because I can’t do it justice, but after ronan wakes with the bloodied mask he wonders “whose dna…would a lab find in that blood?” this is THE merging of adam and ronan line imo that makes all of my tenuous claims that the nightmare is about adam becoming ronan hold actually hold water. it’s like if the narrator in kevin atwater’s my blood is your blood hated themselves and their partner too because their love felt like violence and guilt. and because both adam and ronan, due to their (father-related) trauma, struggle to distinguish between pain and attraction and desire and resentment, there’s an implication that reciprocated feelings between the two of them would also be mutually inflicted harm- that they’ll both make each other bleed. spring awakening word of your body. it reminds me of when dogs get into a fight and in the aftermath it’s hard to tell whose blood is whose, if one is bleeding or just covered in the other’s; ronan’s nightmare explores: who is capable of harming (loving) the other. because ronan’s refusal to harm adam as nightmare adam harms ronan is love, even if twisted up. ronan can’t extricate desire from violence at this point since he hasn’t woken up to his second secret yet (and undergone the character development required to realize it). the blood might as well be both of theirs.

Some other assorted details: the overlap between ronan’s self-hatred and his projection of this onto adam (ch 9: ronan had seen a face about to break in the mirror etc. terrible paraphrase but you know what i mean) so his nightmare is an exploration of him projecting onto adam; there’s a dual desire for adam/reciprocation but also a fear + assumption that adam is simultaneously terrorized by his own feelings (which tbh is not wrong) so adam being the horror in the nightmare is to say he’s Ronan since the horrors are an extension of Ronan’s depression, grief, guilt, etc. esp. regarding his faith and sexuality which are symbolized via the dreaming, and since ronan could not kill him (it wasn’t a choice! foreshadowing! he sees himself as a corrupting force on adam, etc.), ronan is eventually subconsciously led to the realization that he cannot kill himself either- he has to believe in himself (cheesy, but since the climax of tdt crucially involves adam’s belief in ronan and the dreaming and the second secret, it’s real) and to believe that his love for others is beautiful rather than dangerous, and that this love can be wielded back at himself too. “why do you hate you? I don’t. he woke up” is the same damn thing as “it was only for adam it had been a prison.” pretend i pasted in the spiral eyes emoji 1000 =x here. (adam’s own self-loathing, isolation, bargain w cabeswater, etc…. so very eight of swords. if only he would take the blindfold off etc.)

and this all ties back to the two headed night horror… tdt opening with ronan’s secrets and the plane and adam’s doubt in ronan’s dreaming and the first introduction of the black night horrors and the eventual acceptance of mirrored attraction or at least acknowledgement of ronan’s second secret and adam witnessing the manifestation of the white night horror which is double-headed and signifies both internal and external love/acceptance… i’m running out of steam here but it all ties together. it’s all connected I promise.

but in this chapter, before the plot of tdt plays out in full, we're left with the conclusion of what if adam reciprocates ronan's attraction? that's what he wants (this is why he pays the rent. this is why the dream is in the st. agnes apartment, where ronan has put adam.), but because at this point ronan can't differentiate between desire and self-loathing, adam wanting him back would make him a mirror of his desire and self-loathing, and the fear of this is explored in the nightmare. i hope this has made sense!

i think this was pretty comprehensive and perhaps too speculative but aside from opal's role in the dream, which i'm still thinking about, but i'd love to hear someone else's take on her in this chapter (or anything else about the mask nightmare!).

#ask #rchl #trc #ronan #adam #i seriously hope this is at least partially intelligible and that we can chat about this!#also this is over 4000 words so I’m a little sorry about that #ronan lynch #the dream thieves

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